


Time Travel For Pedestrians

by kalima



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25213504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalima/pseuds/kalima
Summary: Buffy and the gang and some time traveling vampires. Life after death.  First written in 2002.
Relationships: Spike/Buffy Summers, Tara Maclay/Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris/Anya Jenkins
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**__**

****

**_January 2002._ **

**_My name is Buffy and I’m a Slayer._ **

**_Bleah. Sounds like I’m in a Slayers Anonymous meeting. “God grant me the serenity to accept the demons I cannot slay, the courage to slay the demons I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”_ **

**_Huh. Not bad advice actually, all kidding aside. Setting the kidding aside now. Here I go. All business Buffy._ **

**_OK. This is the official log of Buffy Summers, the Slayer. The one girl in all the world chosen to fight the vampires and the demons and the forces of darkness … only because the other slayer is a total skank. And also, in prison. Which is why most Slayers Anonymous meetings have only me showing up. I have to make the coffee and set up the chair — _ **

**_Kidding. There is no SA in this part of California. Kidding again. There is no SA. Ha. I’m a kidder. It’s probably the reason you’re reading this, because I cracked a joke when I should have been cracking a head, because, if you’re reading this at all, then I’m dead and you must be the Watcher’s Council. Too much joking, not enough slaying, you’ll say, and file this as a cautionary tale for other slayers about the folly of too much kidding around._ **

**_Or you’re Dawn, hoping to read about herself again. In which case, ha ha, you’re in the other super secret diary, the one in the bank vault with my diamond tiara._ **

**_Why am I doing this again? Oh yeah. Giles called on Wednesday. I guess to see how I was doing. He said the Council thought I ought to be keeping a journal of some kind. For Posterity. I said, “Oh, posterity. That means after I’m dead again.” And he got that hitch in his voice and I’m sorry, okay, but —_ **

**_It’s just – sometimes when Giles talks to me, his voice feels like my favorite blankie from when I was three. I hear his voice and I want to cry, you know? Because no more blankie. Ever. And I could whine about how unfair that is, but it wouldn’t change anything. On Wednesday he’s all blankie voice on the phone, talking about what posterity really means, and how if I kept a diary, I’d be able to look back on this time in my life and realize how — well, he said “remarkable” and “strong,” and maybe something about how proud he was of me, and I don’t even remember because then I did start to cry so I told him I was late for work and hung up real fast._ **

**_I haven’t kept a diary in, well, forever. Since high school at least. It was all about shoes as I recall. Clothes. What band was playing at the Bronze and how unfair it was that I had to be the Slayer on a Friday night. Stuff about Angel, of course. Which was, you know, mostly hearts with Buffy and Angel 4EVA written inside them, and how kissing him made we want to die (in his arms usually), what our wedding would be like. (Yes, I fantasized about it. So what? God I hope nobody read those while I was dead.) I never wrote about what happened after. How could I?_ **

**_And I’m guessing that is not what should be in this diary. Because no more vampire honeys for this slayer, no sirree._ **

**_Last year I didn’t have time. For diaries I mean. The year before that I was in college and too busy with the parties and the Riley and, well, college. And then there was the Initiative problem, and the Adam troubles, and, oh yeah, He who shall henceforth be referred to by his code name Dastardly Dick, the Demon, or Dickhead for short. ( Who, by the way, still doesn’t believe I broke it off with him for real this time. But I did. He’ll find out I’m really serious this time. Really. Really serious. And, anyway, it’s not like we were together. And anyway, I’m going to use white-out on any mention of Demon Dick.) _ **

**_I probably should be getting to the “patrolled, slayed, won” stuff._ **

**_OK. Went on patrol about ten p.m. Did the usual tour of the graveyards, then ran into a thing on Alta Vista Avenue. Kind of a slobbering Teletubby with scales and no dancing. Also, it had these weird bubbly things that kept bulging out from its Tele-tummy. Egg sacs maybe? I don’t know. Extreme grossness anyway._ **

**_As soon as it saw me it charged. Why do all these demons think that running at me with their arms out and roaring “garrghh” is a viable attack? I said “who needs a hug?” (I know, I know, my quipping skills have really fallen down on the job, but come on! I just worked a ten hour shift at an actual job.) I ducked under its arms, and elbowed where it would have kidneys if it were, you know, not a demon. Mostly I was trying to avoid the bulging bubble belly. Which, by the way, stank like one of those Obsession knock-offs they sell at Save-Rite. Oh, and did I mention the slime? Always with the slime. So, anyway, we’re going at it hammer and tongs – (and Omigod. I just used a Dickhead-ism and I don’t even know if I used it right. Kill me now) – suddenly it grabs me and starts hugging. The kind of hugging that brings all your tasty insides out through every available orifice. And it’s cooing. Like a freaking turtle dove. I could feel the bubbles in its middle bulging out of its gut and trying to bulge into me. I think it was trying to have sex with me or lay eggs in me…which, I suppose amounts to the same thing in nature. Anyway, I’d totally had it with demons thinking I’d put out just because —_ **

**_So. Managed to wiggle an arm free and whack it a couple of times till it finally dropped me. LaLa or Bo or whatever just stood there with antennae waving, looking all affronted, so I took the opportunity to get the axe out of my bag. It’s the small cute one with the engraved head, really well balanced for throwing. Hit Tinkywinky in the bubbles, and pop! Demon gone._ **

**_But here’s the weird part, the reason I’m writing this down. Right after the demon went pop, the axe kind of hung in the air for a second and then oozed to the ground, like the way mercury kind of oozes, you know? When I went to pick it up it was all … floppy. Like rubber. Then, as I was holding it , it got hard again._ **

**_Crap. You know what I’m really hating right now? That I can actually hear Dickhead’s running commentary on the floppy/hard axe business just like he was sharing the space in my head. DemonDick needs to get a Demon unlife and stay out of my ~~privates~~. Private stuff. Out of my head._ **

**_Bubbly gut, and ~~floppy~~ \-- ~~limp~~ \-- compromised axe are definite research party material. So guess we’ll be doing that. Tomorrow. Or whenever. _ **

Buffy recapped her shiny pen, one of the many she’d nabbed from the bank after they denied her a loan for the second time (even though she had a job!) She closed the new notebook and put it onto the step next to her axe. Gave the axe handle a cursory pat just to assure herself it was maintaining a nice solid state, then quickly wiped her hand on her jeans. Solid but slimy. 

It was going on two in the morning, and the air was what Xander would call, in his terribly mature way, nipply. She drew her coat tighter around her, knowing she really ought to go inside, but then she’d only end up staring at dishes that needed washing, or Dawn’s shoes that needed picking up, or the stack of bills on the dining room table. Out here, the dim light of the porch bulb illuminated nothing more dire than the chipped and flaking paint on the steps. 

Hey. She could do something about that! Scraping and painting might be fun, maybe even something she could afford to do, enjoy doing. Satisfying. Bring a sense of accomplishment and job well done – unlike slaying or the hundred looming financial sinkholes associated with the care and feeding of house and sibling. She dug a nail under a flake and peeled back a long strip of blue. It was so satisfying in fact. that she went to peel up another. This time she got a splinter for her trouble. “Stupid house,” she muttered before pulling the sliver out with her teeth. Saliva, blood, and, bleah – slime – mingled on her tongue for a moment, summing up her life in the perfect gross cocktail. The Bloody Slimeball. Rich, tanned people would order it in chic restaurants. But it was missing something, wasn’t it? The top note of bitters. Her own little undead drink umbrella. 

Ah. There he was. 

The cigarette smoke would have given him away even if the hairs rising on the back of her neck hadn’t. She sighed. “You gonna lurk in the shrubbery all night?”

Spike stepped into the circle of porch light, looking faintly embarrassed. “Well, figured a nice shrubbery ought to do the trick.” 

She looked at him blankly. “Do the trick for what?” He was in the midst of rolling his eyes and snorting dismissively when she said, “Oh. Shrubbery. The Knights who say ‘Nee.’” At his expression, she pressed her lips together tight, trying not to laugh. Chagrin was such a different look for him. “So. Is shrubbery some kind of British slang for sex?”

He pinched out the cigarette with his fingertips and flicked it into said shrubbery. “Something like, yeah. Bit surprised you caught the reference at all, though.” 

“I’ve actually seen Holy Grail you know. More than once. Never thought it was _that_ funny.”

“Yeah, that’s a real shocker, that is.” He took his usual seat on the porch step, left of her and just far enough away not to crowd her, as if it were still October and he was still her sounding board and not her favorite means of escape. 

She allowed it by ignoring it. “You English think you have some kind of corner on the comedy market. But half the time I can’t understand what anyone’s saying in your so called ‘comedies.’”

“Holster the airquotes, little missy. Happen to know that Harris is quite the fan of Monty Python, can quote verbatim at the drop of a — what? What’d I say now?”

“It all becomes clear. What you guys were doing in his parent’s basement.”

“Weren’t doing anything. Look, he had a lot of videos. I was bored.”

“But this proves that you watched videos at the same time. _Together._ ” 

“I had no choice! Was tied to bloody barcalounger!” She huffed a laugh of pure derision. Like he couldn’t have untied himself . “Just so happens Harris has very … not …horrible taste in films. Better’n you.” 

“I’ll be sure to tell him you said so.”

“Don’t you dare.”

They both knew she wouldn’t of course. Because that would mean admitting she’d been chatting with Spike. _Ignore the elephant in the backyard. There is no elephant. You are getting very sleepy._

He began a hand pat search for cigarettes, eyes casting about for something, anything else, that would serve as distraction. Ignored the axe in favor of the more intriguing notebook. “What’s this then?”

She grabbed it before he could, clutching it to her chest. “Nothing.”

He waggled his brows in his best Dastardly Dick fashion. “Ooh, Slayer. Keeping a diary now, are we?”

“You’re not in it.” 

“Liar.” But his tone was only mildly chiding. He didn’t push the issue. 

“It’s – it’s my Slayer’s log.”

“Gonna have a voice over with the Stardate and all?” 

“Wow. You’re really outing yourself with the pop culture references tonight.”

“Been watching a lot of telly. A _lot._ Of late.”

They both knew why that was, too. “Spike …”

“Don’t fret yourself, Buffy. Not here for the _nostalgie de la boue._ ”

Her sophomore year of French in high school was an embarrassing blur, but she caught the gist about longing and dirt. “Why _are_ you here, Spike?”

His mouth snapped a grin like a rubber band. “Out for a walk, bitch.”

“Uh huh.” Time to become terribly interested in astronomy. “Oh look. Is that the Big Dipper?”

“Er, no, _darling._ Because it’s winter. Can’t see the Big Dipper, not in this half of the world, any rate. Not even in sunny Southern California.” 

“It was just a lame attempt to change the subject.”

“I know.” 

With a flick of his thumb, the silver lighter flared up, and she thought suddenly of how butane fire smelled a little of lightning. His features, caught in that momentary flare, also reminding her of lightning. Terrible and beautiful, like Shiva. 

“You should leave,” she said. But there was nothing in her voice that insisted on it, so he didn’t even make a token effort to move. A second later she was waving the cigarette smoke out of her face. “And you shouldn’t call me darling.”

“You did catch the note of condescension in my voice, didn’t you?”

“Did I ever.” She leaned back, elbows and forearms resting on the top step, notebook resting on the button of her coat. Still looking at the night sky. “Do you think our lives are already mapped out?” she asked. “That when I get to the last page of this diary, that’ll be the end of me?” 

“What? Why would you – ?” The look on his face was not the look she wanted to see at that moment. It was the same look Dawn and the others got whenever she started talking like this. But unlike them, he realized the true effect it had on her. “You spend too much time worrying prophecies and dreams, luv,” he said gently. He held out his right hand, palm up, letting the faint lamp light throw shadows over it. “Look. See those lines there. Says that I marry my heart’s true love, have five kids and live to dandle grandchildren on my knee. S’all a load of bullshit —“

She held up her hand to shush him, all her senses cocked. “You hear that?” 

He frowned. “Yeah, it’s — Jesus. What in hell are those?”

“I was hoping you’d know,” she said, rising fluidly. The notebook hit the porch with a soft thump as she scooped up the axe, and jumped lightly from the steps to the grass. 

Spike got to his feet with less urgency, like the long stretch of a cat. “Never seen anything like ‘em —“

There were three of them. The rest of the Teletubbies set. “I killed one over on Alta Vista. It did something icky-nasty to my axe.” 

He spared a glance for the axe in question. “Something sexual?”

“Gutter? Meet Spike’s mind. _**No.**_ Made it all —“ Buffy huffed another sigh. Irritation this time. And a deeply furrowed brow. “Doesn’t matter.” 

“Looks to be downright virginal at the moment,” he said. Two at the gate. One near the rose bushes. “Say, I’ve got an idea. Be jolly if you whacked one of ‘em with it about now.” 

“Well, see that’s the problem …” She bounced on the balls of her feet. All they had was the axe, and the axe had suffered from erectile dysfunction last time. “Maybe we could use a shrubbery?” 

“Uh. Maybe.” 

The two at the gate linked paws. Scaly antennae waved and twisted, and she stumbled a little, suddenly nauseous, off balance. From out of their lamprey mouths came sounds like words stuttered through static on the radio. 

“What are they saying? Timmer. Timmy? Did you kill little Timmy, Slayer?” 

“Yes. Timmy won’t be coming home tonight.” 

There was painful pressure in her ears, then a pop like a sudden shift in altitude, and at the same time the light on the porch gave a soft little pop. Everywhere, in the whole neighborhood, things were popping. And weirder and worse, the gate between the demons and her backyard melted into the lawn. “Oh shit,” she murmured.

A black and white blur came flying past her head, knocking the demon near the rose bushes into them. Spike was very much like a cat that way – from indolent, self-indulgent repose to swift and violent action, sometimes with absolutely no transition between states. 

“Watch out!” she warned. “They’re huggers!” 

From the corner of her eye she saw his arm pull back. The sickly squelching of it landing, and his squeak of horrified dismay let her know what he had punched into. 

“Also, you should watch out for the bubbly gut.”

“Fucking hell!” 

But after that, Buffy was far too busy trying to avoid death-by-hugging herself. She was ducking and dodging for all she was worth, desperately searching for something other than her arm or the axe to hit it with. A glimpse – Spike spin-kicking the other one, his arms looking as solid and muscle-y as ever, reassured her. She tried to get a blow into the stomach of hers. This time the demons had some brains though, and her axe landed on a blocking arm. Growling with frustration, she dropped to the ground, pulling and flipping the demon over her, using the embedded axe as leverage. Before it could recover, she was over it, punching into its belly and then falling forward as it imploded. Glancing up, she saw Spike land a front kick in the other’s stomach and it too was gone, splattering across the steps.

“Do you have to bring your work home with you?” he asked, falling back with a thump against the wood. Two doors down, a dog belatedly started barking. Buffy groaned and leaned on her axe to push herself up off her knees. She walked over slowly to the porch and inspected the damage. One bruise coming up nicely on Spike’s forehead, several large scuffs in the lawn, flattened rose bush, axe still hard, nick in the edge and…

“Oh great! It slimed my diary. Now I’m going to have to start all over again.”

"Yeah," he said. Too softly. And then there was kissing, groping, and they were moving again, swift, repose into action without any transition. She couldn't breathe, didn't care. His hands gripped her shoulders tight, walking her backwards somewhere, somehow, though her eyes were closed and all her senses were pounding, in heart and mouth and between her legs, shaky legs, so when the backs of her knees met the edge of the bench in the yard, she tumbled over it gratefully, hands twisted in leather, pulling, pulling him down with her, pulling him in again.


	2. Chapter 2

**January 2002**

Ever since Tara could remember, she’d had the scar in the palm of her left hand – a tiny pale pinwheel of raised tissue that sat between her head and heart lines, right next to fate. Willow had asked her about it, in happier times, those long lazy afternoons spent spooning and talking, drifting in and out of kisses, missing classes. 

“How’d you get this?”

“I don’t know. I’ve had it forever. Happened when I was a baby.”

“Really? Must have been a bad burn if you still have it. Didn’t you ever ask about it?”

“Well, Daddy said it was the mark of the demon, but — you think it’s a burn scar? I always thought it was from a cut.” She’d never really thought about it. There was no feeling of wrongness about the scar, no anxiety associated with it. 

“Looks almost like somebody branded you,” Willow whispered, then uttered a little cry and drew Tara into a fierce protective hug, no doubt imagining all sorts of childhood abuses. Willow would save her. Willow would make it better. She didn’t really need saving, not then, and not from that. But it felt wonderful to know that someone loved her enough to try. 

That was when they’d first started seriously discussing techniques and methods for healing through magic. Tara knew a lot of the basics, but Willow had all kinds of theories, elaborations of stuff she’d read, from Gurdjieff and Crowley to Timothy Leary and Starhawk. She envisioned clinics devoted to healing rituals using psychotropic herbs and focusing crystals so that the person could travel back – metaphysically, spiritually, to seek out the root cause in the past and either fix it or remove it. Sometimes a person might have to go to the source of a problem back through several previous lives. By addressing the psychological and karmic causes for the soul’s injury, then, in theory, the need for a physical manifestation of a scar, or a cancer say, would be rendered null and void. There could be past life regressions and guided meditations and spirit channeling and it would be so incredibly cool! 

It was hardly a new theory, but some of their research had uncovered means and ways that, as Willow had said, “blows Louise Hay out of the pond, baby!” Still, a very complicated philosophical problem. Karma was one thing to some people, and quite another to others. There was the whole samsara deal to consider, laws of cause and effect, and mustn’t forget the wiccan rede. Could the cure cause more harm spiritually than the disease? Would the sick person get to decide the course of treatment or should the healer, what if the person didn’t want to pursue the cure? What if the cure left a big hole in the space-time continuum? There were lots of questions, questions Willow had been quick to sidestep or gloss over. 

_An it harm none, do what thou wilt._ But Willow was, even then, very much a “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” person. Oh, she was kind, and generous, and always believed she had everyone’s best interests in mind when she…did what she wilt. But the best interests of others became more and more filtered through her assumption of what was best. Witness the infamous ball of sunshine/troll fiasco. Anya was right. They totally should have paid for the ingredients. Tara knew that, because certain magic was about like for like, equal measures, balance of energy. You couldn’t “borrow” the ingredients lest the results be returned to the lender and you end up with zilch. But she’d let it slide, mostly because she was an outsider, but also because she was in love. 

Thinking back, all the signs of Willow’s predilection had been there when Tara read her palm at the Magic Box – god, not even two years ago. Maybe if she’d said something then, instead of pretending it was nothing, Willow might have realized the path she was on and stepped off that road before —

No. She wouldn’t have. Because she was Willow and that’s part of what Tara had seen. 

The electric kettle whistled and she got up, poured water over the tea bag and listlessly watched the cheap orange pekoe cloud the cup. She’d left a message inviting Dawn to come over after school. She thought maybe they’d go to a matinee, eat some pizza. But she hadn’t heard back yet. It was starting to look like the connections she thought she’d made with Willow’s friends only existed because she’d been caught in Willow’s gravitational pull. 

She flexed her hand and looked at the scar again. She still had some of the notes they’d made. Somewhere. 

Tea forgotten, she went to the closet and started pulling out the boxes she hadn’t bothered to unpack yet because too much Willow was inside them.

***

The lecture hall in the science building was packed. Willow looked around. No seats left. Looked like she’d be one of those blocking the fire exits.

Aaron Gossett was proving to be the biggest draw for the entire lecture series. There were tons of girls here tonight, and she suspected only a very few were actually interested in the possibility of “global causality violation in time travel.” 

If his photo on the back of his book were any indication (and not, as she also suspected, from twenty years ago,) Professor Gossett was definitely the super-hotty centerfold of scientific journals everywhere – in a forty year old guy kind of way. She flipped through the book, idly – **_Time Travel for Pedestrians, a guide to the highways and byways of temporal theory_** – then shoved it back in her bag. Another one of those “physics for the lay person” books that crowded the science shelves these days. Personally she thought it was a little on the cutesy side, a bit snide and condescending, what she’d read of it anyway. But, hey, she already had the ticket. Tara had bought tickets for the entire lecture series at the beginning of the fall semester, even though she wasn’t much for science. It was yet another example of why Tara was good and kind and wise and sweet and thoughtful, and why Willow didn’t deserve her and should be buried up to her eyeballs in …eyeballs. Still, when she’d discovered the tickets in a dresser drawer this morning, it seemed a shame to waste them. She’d wasted enough of her life in the past few weeks already. So here she was, donning the old collegiate tankini and diving into academia again. Yes, a refreshing dip in the academic pool was just the thing. She hoped. 

But the press of people was already making her jittery – teeth grinding, arms locked hard over her chest, nails digging into the soft tissue under her arms kind of jittery. She wanted every breathless giggling girl to shut the hell up, and knew that she could make them shut up and they’d never even know it. She wanted to sit in the front of the auditorium and knew that she could make someone give her a seat and that someone would be pleased as punch to do it. She knew that it was wrong and bad, but still, she felt it. She could barely pay attention to the introductions, and was about to beat a retreat when Aaron Gossett took the podium. Suddenly, her attention narrowed, focused in, and then honed itself to a razor sharp edge. He had presence, she’d give him that much. 

He was an attractive man, not tall but not short, thin but not gaunt, with the suggestion of nicely defined, manly muscles everywhere. He wore a simple but elegant white shirt, black jeans, and a black suit jacket of a fashion forward European cut. Thick black hair, artfully disarrayed. Thick black brows, artfully sculpted. His cheekbones were sharp, chiseled things, but she suspected the neat goatee was there merely to hide a weak chin. The dark-rimmed glasses however, those looked to be more for effect than necessity. She could see that his eyes were very blue, even from this distance. He reminded her of someone, though she couldn’t think who at the moment. 

While the audience quieted down, Professor Gossett milked the anticipatory silence by pouring a glass of water from the pitcher provided and taking a few long gulps. He fiddled with the notes in front of him a moment then looked out over the hall and smiled. 

“’There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of space, except that our _consciousness_ moves along it.’” He removed his glasses. “H.G Wells wrote that in his ground breaking fiction The Time Machine ten years before Einstein published his special theory of relativity and posited Time as the fourth dimension. The logical snag in Wells’ story, of course, is that one shouldn’t be able to travel back in time to before the time machine was built. How could that be? Paradox is always the snag, isn’t it? And yet, every human being on the planet, every man, woman, and child who ever _was, is,_ or _will be_ – everyone of us in this room – is right now traveling through time in our quaint pedestrian fashion. All Time is Now, my friends.”

Willow grinned. There was nothing like the plummy tones of an Englishman at the lectern.

***

_I shouldn’t be doing this alone,_ Tara thought, then breathed into the thought and through and past it. She wasn’t creating a cone of power here after all, but a bubble, or a cockpit to protect her when the arrow of her concentration aimed and shot towards the source of the scar. Once there, she’d only take a quick look at the situation, examine the whys and wherefores and karmic implications, then return to her body and decide if she wanted to change anything.

She’d made a different sort of tea instead, and was feeling the effects now. Naked, sitting yogi fashion, spirit at the center of the elements. Candle, salt, incense, bowl of water. Fundamental elemental. She giggled, rolling the words around in her mouth like marbles. Relaxed backwards onto the floor, straightening her legs, spreading them wide, and her arms wide, like the spokes of a wheel with her womb at the center, pulling the power up from three floors down. She was the arrow and the bow. She was her own intention notched into the intention of the universe. 

“From the mark in my flesh to the mark in my flesh, goddess guide me, my aim is true.”

One, two, three – Go!

***

“No, you’re right, you’re absolutely right, I think. It’s what Price said. The whole notion that the past is not influenced by the future is an anthropocentric illusion, a projection of our own temporal asymmetry. The reason why the things we do in the present don’t _seem_ to have altered the past is because the past has already taken account of whatever we’re doing that’s different.”

“That’s what I meant. Exactly, yes,” Willow said. She was smiling with such intellectual joy her dimples hurt. Sitting in bar discussing temporal physics with a professor! Churning the ice at the bottom of her glass with her straw like the milkmaid on a box of margarine!

“Would you like another?” Aaron asked, and he’d already turned to wave down the waitress before she could answer. She _would_ like another actually, even though she had a sneaking suspicion he was trying to get into her pants by plying her with liquor. Who cared? This was the first truly stimulating conversation she’d had since – _no, don’t think about that. Her._

After the lecture and the Q&A, Willow did something she’d never done before. She stood in line with about twenty other people (mostly female people) so he could autograph her copy of his book. While he was signing it, she mentioned that certain branches of the occult believed that the concept of _all time_ existing at the I>same time was what allowed practitioners to move through it in any direction, even sideways. He’d stopped, beautiful pen poised mid scrawl and looked at her. “Yes, I’d heard that,” he replied, then asked if she’d wait until he was done there, so they could discuss it further. 

Cocktail lounge at the Ramada Inn and two glasses of house Merlot later — 

“Yes,” she said, to the offer of another and to what he was saying. “I mean, if we decide to do something different, the past already knows and has made the necessary adjustments.”

“In a manner of speaking. Which doesn’t really negate the concept free will though, you understand.” 

“Well, it might, for the people it affects that don’t happen to be you.”

He laughed. More drinks were set before them. The conversation wove in and out of Zen Buddhism, dancing wu li masters, holographic minds creating holographic universes, practical magic and magical practices, a few of the successful spells she’d done with Tara, her studies, the university itself, what she’d chosen as her major. 

“Good lord!” he laughed. “History of Consciousness. How shall you ever find employment?”

“I know, I know. But, I’ll end up teaching anyway, so I might as well pursue what interests me.” 

“You remind me of a friend of mine. She was a professor here for a number of years. Maggie Walsh.”

“Oh! Oh, you knew her.”

“We were at Berkeley together for a time.”

“Together? As in together, together?”

“What? Oh no, no. Just colleagues, friends. Our interests diverged and we lost touch. She was brilliant you know, so many interests, so many fields of expertise. She’d even developed some very interesting theories on practical time travel, the idea of vehicular memories. I mention it in the book. But it was only a fancy to her. I was deeply sorry to hear of her passing.”

“Yeah… I mean, yes, that was a-a difficult time in all our lives.”

He leaned forward, a classic invitation to gossip. “Do you know that none of her research was ever recovered. Years and years worth of studies and experiments, and my God, she was so meticulous, you’d think she would have had copies twice over of everything, all safely locked away somewhere. But it was all lost. Bleedin’ tragic. The scientific community mourned that loss more than they mourned her death, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Huh, really. That is tragic.” _Oh my god, oh my god._

“If I were the suspicious type, I’d think it was a government cover-up.”

“Heh, yeah. That darned government, always pulling the covers over something.” 

Encrypted disks, file folders, bits of hardware – she had a box full of Maggie Walsh and the Initiative stuff in the basement of Buffy’s house. That was supposing it had survived the burst water pipes. She’d always meant to go through it, but things kept coming up. Jeez Louise! 

She rose quickly, a little unsteady on her pins. “Well, you know, this has been great, Professor Gossett, but I really should be going now. Classes, pointless degrees to pursue.” 

“Oh, really? You can’t stay for another? Well, all right then. It was lovely to meet you, Miss Rosenberg, and – wait just a moment – “ He drew a card out of his jacket’s inside pocket. “That’s my mobile, if you feel like furthering our discussion. I’ll be in Sunnydale for a few more days. Colleagues to dine with. Business to attend. I’ve taken a room at a bed and breakfast in town. Can’t abide these hotel sheets, I’m such a delicate flower sometimes. Perhaps we’ll run into each other before I leave.”

“Perhaps. Thanks again. For the drinks and … everything.”

“It’s been a pleasure. You’re sure you’re all right to drive? Well, do be careful then. Goodnight.”

As Willow made her way to her car, fumbled the key in the ignition, and drove away well over the legal limit, another car pulled out of the parking lot and then sat idling at the curb. After a ten minutes, Aaron Gossett came out of the bar. He opened the door and slid in next to the driver. “Hello darling. I see that you’re angry with me.”

The vampire in the driver’s seat turned flashing gold eyes on him and bared her fangs. “I could pull your spine out through your throat and samba on it, you _brujo_ bastard. You make me wait and wait like a servant.”

He only laughed and said, “But wait until I tell you what I’ve found, my love. If you still want to samba on my spine I’ll pull it out for you myself and tie a bow in it.” Her features remained locked in vampire mode and she growled softly. He walked his fingers up her thigh, past the opaque silky tops of her stockings, to the cool bare skin above, and tried sing song his way back into her good graces. “I’ll let you have my brain for breakfast. I’ll remove my liver with the top of a rusty tin can and sauté it in my own blood. I’ll let you eat my cock like a raspberry ice.”

“ _Let_ me, ha!” she scoffed. “You’ll beg, like the simpering _veado_ you are.”

“I will.” He leaned into the sphere of her dangerous sharp teeth. Fingers buried in the mass of smoky back hair now, he pulled her to his mouth and kissed and kissed. 

She pulled away from him. “First, you will buy me dinner.”

“We’ll pick up something on the way.”

***

Well, apparently Tara wasn’t _in_ Stevenson Hall like Dawn thought. Or Hurst. Suffice it to say there was a lot of student housing at UC Sunnydale, and most of it not real close together.

Dawn had hung out at the quad for a couple of hours, bought a mocha and a really expensive cookie from a kiosk, hoping she’d spot Tara going to a class or getting out of one. But by five it was already darkish and she was jittery from caffeine and all the waiting. She went to the library and wandered around, sure she was going to see Tara in the stacks, or sitting at one of the big tables. Maybe at the computers. But people were looking at her like she was a lost little kid, and it made her feel lost and like a kid, so she got out of there. 

She walked real fast over to Lowell House, because she’d visited there once, when Riley lived there, and none of these college people could look at her like she was lost if she knew where she was going. But somehow she ended up on Greek Row, surrounded by Kappa Delta’s and Sigma Phi’s and Delta Phi Epsilon’s, and what was it with the whole Greek thing in colleges anyway? It was just stupid. Everything about this stupid campus was stupid. And now she had no money for the bus or a phone call. 

It was so unfair! Even if Buffy couldn’t afford a cell phone for herself she should at least make sure that Dawn - who, by the way, had no superpowers _whatsoever_ – at least had a freaking cell phone. Everyone at school had one, and not just because they were spoiled little rich kids either. There were legitimate emergencies that did not involve food court rendezvous, or what skank-ho mini skirt Phoebe Winokur wore that one day last week when Dawn ditched homeroom. Like, in case a person was stranded somewhere, and all shaky from too much sugar and caffeine, they could call a grown-up who would come get them with no questions asked. 

Obviously Buffy was not in _that_ picture. 

_Fine then. I’ll just have to hitch a ride with a stranger. Serve ‘em right if said stranger has a gun rack in his pick-up truck from Hell, no handle on the inside passenger’s door, and sings Country Western songs while strangling his victims with pantyhose._

Of course, Dawn thought, as she walked along the shoulder of the road towards town, here in Sunnydale, she was more likely to get eaten by a vampire, and not even irony could save that from being the lamest death _ever. _Oh it looked all sexy on television but…__

__Anyway, not like anyone would notice. She heard a car coming, and stuck out her thumb._ _


	3. Chapter 3

The astral body was a blithe and curious nothing, notoriously inattentive to piddling details like food water air. So, it was no great concern to Tara’s astral self when it took off on this mission, whether or not she had a Willow anchor holding her physical body’s hand.  
Astral projection was misnamed anyway. How could it be called travel if it was instantaneous? If it made no sense unless you were actually experiencing it – exhilarating careless acceptance of, and wonderstruck love for everything. All-Self, and All-Space, and All Time Now. A small subtle shift from cognition to recognition, so that the moment she recognized whatever it was she was looking for – from arcane ritual to misplaced library book – she was there, with it. And just as quickly would be away to something else. Wheels for legs. Wings for arms. 

But this time was _nothing_ like those times. For it seemed she was in fact a projectile hurtling through space, or rather more like a slow moving bullet traveling through a barrel of bubblewrap. Her body-like presence spiraling through the barrel caused a ripple of soft pops as the bubbles collapsed. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, but she could _feel_ it. And it was happening so slowly. Or probably very fast. Like Alice down the rabbit hole. Comes a point in the falling where it doesn’t feel like falling anymore, but more like a life. Without Willow to reel her back would she spiral around and around this corridor until her body died, naked and alone on the floor of her dorm room? It seemed kind of … ignominious. Downright undignified. 

But after a subtle while of Time she became aware that she was no longer spinning, languid and slow through the barrel, but was now walking through a corridor. Though the bubblewrap effect was still in evidence, the bubbles were larger and didn’t give way as she brushed them. The view was distorted too. She could see vaguely familiar woodlands, could feel the forest floor give way, a muted crunch of pine needles and twigs beneath her naked but somehow, protected soles. She could hear too. Bird calls and water dancing in the creek. And voices. Women’s voices. Cognition to recognition. She moved towards the cadence and familiar rhythms of those voices.

***

The message light was flashing when Willow got home. Tara’s voice, only a hint of faltering stammer as she asked Dawn to call her back about seeing a movie that night. No “hi, how’s everybody doing?” or “Baby, I’ve changed my mind, can’t live without you.”

So. OK. Fine. That took care of Dawn then. Buffy was working the closing shift and wouldn’t be home until after eleven – later if she decided to patrol. Which left the bulk of the evening to very absorbing research of the science-y kind. Willow put coffee on and went to the basement. 

Of course, the first box she came across would have to be the one with all her magical paraphernalia in it, all the stuff Buffy had helped her pack up and was _supposed_ to get rid of! Willow stared at it, swaying a little, overwhelmed by the supernatural vibes and the stink of loss that accompanied it. 

It wasn’t so much the items inside. She didn’t need the stuff – any of it really – to do magic, and she supposed that ought to scare her. It did scare her. But what seemed scarier were all the mementos, testaments to a failure to be loveable that were contained within. The amber pendant she’d worn to her first real sabbat. Her athame with her secret name etched on the blade in runes and symbols Tara had taught her. Gifts they’d exchanged. (“Trade you the spiderwitch t-shirt for the silver ring.” “OK.”) Things they’d bought together, like the rose quartz crystal that had a smaller one sprouting from its middle like a pregnant tummy. Or stuff found on walks – the tiny skull of a cat, the cast off skin of a snake, a stick that looked like a leprechaun’s shillelagh, a rock shaped like frog that they used for burning incense. It was full of Tara, _her_ Tara of soft mossy secrets, whirlpools and tide pools and Tinkerbell lights. 

Helpless rage, self-flagellating guilt, and the certain sense that she although didn’t deserve Tara, she didn’t deserve _this_ , filled Willow as she rifled the box, eyes burning with tears she refused to shed, hands tingling with magic she refused to use. There were bags of herbs collected at various phases of the moon, and little brown bottles of tinctures and oils. Mortar and pestle. And — oh! Shitshitshit. The amplifying crystal. 

A velvet pouch wrapped in a plastic shopping bag from Safeway – one of the many Buffy routinely brought home from various grocers with the excuse she forgot to ask for paper and hey, plastic bags had a thousand and one uses, for example – to pack one of the most powerful crystals Giles had ever had in the shop. Anya didn’t know who’d actually purchased it. Willow had been pretty clever about that, justified it beautifully. Anya was a greedy capitalist. The crystal belonged with the people who might really need it, people who’d know how to use it in the constant war being waged against the Hellmouth. In short, it needed to be Willow’s. 

She didn’t need to take it out of the box to see it in her mind’s eye – a small wand of double terminated clear quartz with dozens of needle-like inclusions of black tourmaline imbedded within. Tourmalinated quartz was supposed to be able to amplify energy sent towards it, then send that energy back to the source, or to wherever or whenever or whatever goal the practitioner using it chose. Double-terminated meant the process could be repeated endlessly. Mirrors within mirrors within mirrors. In theory anyway. She hadn’t tested it. Something about the way it felt in her hands always made her drop it back into its little velvet pouch and hide it away again. But now, it was like a spider, waiting for to her disturb its ugly, environmentally irresponsible nest. 

Panting with anxiety she closed the flaps of the box and kicked it back under the stairwell. She cast about desperately trying to remember what brought her down here in the first place. Then she spotted it, on the shelves by the washer and dryer, the rusting biscuit tin decorated with Dutch-blue windmills. In it she’d placed everything she’d gathered in furtive haste when they left the Initiative underground for that last and final time. If anyone had asked her then (which they didn’t) she would have told them these things might be useful someday. But later on she’d been so exhausted she couldn’t begin to start the long, tedious process of decryption, salvaging half-burnt files ala CSI, or figuring out what this or that weird little doohickey did. Like everyone else, she just wanted to move on. 

Now she pressed the tin to her chest like a poultice for her sad, sorry heart, and went upstairs to plug in her laptop and pour a cup of coffee.

***

As soon as the sedan pulled to the side of the road, Dawn regretted her sudden impulse with the thumb. Sometimes it felt like her little devil had her little angel of common sense in a constant choke hold. She shook her head at the car, and kept walking, trying to impart through apologetic shrugs and smiles of refusal and shooing motions – _never mind, everything’s good, no problems here Mr Hellraiser, you just drive on by._ But the car rolled slowly along side her, tires kissing the gravel on the shoulder of the road where she was walking, matching her pace,

To her right was an open flat that seemed to go on forever, and to her left, on the other side of the road, an imposing wall of dirt, stones, and angry shrubs all covered with wire, sporting warning signs about falling rocks and mudslides. Behind her, the road curved round into darkness. Ahead, the lights of Sunnydale proper seemed impossibly far away. 

The passenger window slid down, and a man’s voice said, “I’m going to assume you’re fleeing the attentions of an aggressive date, or that you’ve suffered a recent terrible head injury.” He had a kind of Giles-y accent.

“Um …yeah, that sounds good,” she said. Still walking, not looking too close, maintaining a cautious distance from the car’s door. 

“Because otherwise,” he continued, “I’d have to believe you’re a very stupid girl to be hitchhiking on a dark road at night. You’re not are you?”

“Hitchhiking? No!” Now she was looking at him, a dark-haired man wearing glasses, giving her a worried but reassuring smile. “No, definitely not – or you mean am I stupid? Um, well, I sure feel stupid. I-I kind of lost my bag – “ She saw his eyes slide to the tiny purse on a long leather string she had hooked over her shoulder. “My-my _backpack._ Somebody stole it when I was getting coffee. It had all my school books – my _college_ school books – and my cell phone in it, and- and all my credit cards! I have _way_ too many credit cards.”

“Oh, that’s awful. You must cancel them as soon as you get home.”

She relaxed into the lie at his apparent concerned acceptance of it. “Yes. Yes. I _know_ I’m just so pissed off about it. I was supposed to be meeting my boyfriend. At the college. He goes there. He’s majoring in psychology. I go to a different college. We were supposed to meet at a-the tavern. Have a couple of beers, you know, study for a big psychology test. But he wasn’t there. I waited for like — ever. He can be such a jerk sometimes.”

“College men are often inconsiderate that way.”

“Don’t I know it. Anyway, I got so mad I started walking home.” 

“Ah. I see. Well, we’ve just come from the college.”

“You have?” she squeaked. Oh god. What if he was a teacher? What if he asked her about psychology?

“I was giving a lecture,” he said. “The wife and I were just on our way back to our hotel. We’d be happy to give you a lift. Unless you’d rather walk. Though, honestly, I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not safe, especially for a young co-ed like yourself. I don’t think my wife would let me get a moment’s rest if I allowed it.”

It was almost five miles into town. Take her a couple of hours at least. She bent down a little to peer in at the driver – the man’s wife. The woman had turned slightly in her seat and appeared to be looking back at her, but Dawn couldn’t see her eyes really, or much about her features the except the dark bruised color of her lipstick and a lot of wavy black hair. She didn’t exactly give off a concerned vibe. Probably jealous. Probably her professor husband had affairs with lots co-eds. 

They both thought she went to the college. How cool was that? 

“Or, look, we could drop you off at the service station up the road. You could call someone from there. I’d let you use my phone but I’m afraid the battery needs charging.” He turned to his wife. “Darling, you have some change in your pockets, don’t you?” Then he turned back to Dawn. “It’s no trouble really. Let us give you a ride.” He looked really earnest. Worried about her. 

She gnawed on her lip. She could hear a truck or car coming, the jittery glow of headlights broadening at the bend in the road. With her luck it would be the gun-rack pick-up driving pantyhose strangler. “Well ...”

He opened the door. Began to step out —

The single bouncing headlight of a motorcycle coming up hard and fast. She’d barely registered who was on it before it zoomed by. “Spike!” she yelled. Without slowing, the rider gave a quick look over his shoulder. Dawn jumped up and down, waving her arms like a crazy person in case he needed proof it was her. “Spike! It’s me! It’s me! Stop!” 

There was no way any human could have heard the pitch of her screeching over the sound of that bike, and it was definitely no human that spun the bike around, back tire pitching gravel fifty yards in every direction. The front of the bike reared up a little, like a bronco under a crazed cowboy as the growl of the throttle brought it back her way. 

“It’s okay,” she shouted to the couple in the car as she sprinted across the highway. “He’s my boyfriend!” 

When she got closer to the bike she could see Spike squinting at her one-eyed, bemused and wary. “Your boyfriend now?”

“Many lies were told,” she said climbing up behind. She locked her arms around him tight and laid her cheek against leather. “I’m so glad you’re here. I need Taco Bell. Stat.” 

On the other side of the road, Aaron drew his foot back in and slammed the door. The window slid up with sigh. 

“That, that _cabrao_!” the woman growled. “That scrawny little dog! May he choke on her blood — “

“Don’t spit in the car, darling.” 

“May her blood be a poison that rots his _cacete_ — “

“I’m so sorry, luv, really. I was certain we had her. ” 

“— may it fall off and be stolen by another scrawny little dog who chews it up and buries it in the dirt! May it be dug up by an even smaller dog — “

“Yes, all right! You’re terribly hungry! He absconded with your meal! I’m sorry, but there is a Chevron station just up the road — “ 

“Aaron! Don’t you recognize the _vampiro_ on the motorbike? Who will be eating so much better than I this night, by the way.” 

“Vampire? You’re sure?” He leaned across her with a new urgency, peering out the driver’s side window. “What am I saying? Of course you’re — oh. Well, well. Isn’t that interesting.” He pulled back, settling into his seat again, and gave her hand that gripped the steering wheel a little pat. “Don’t think it’s a cause for worry, my dear. It’s very likely he won’t have met _us_ yet. Come on. We can worry the problem after we’ve got you all fed up.” 

The sedan pulled out onto the road, and after a moment, the bike, heading back towards its original destination, passed the sedan, and was soon a little dot of wavering light gone over the horizon.

***

_“Give me liberty or give me death NO mama’s gonna give you a history test, take what you like and ignore the rest, doomed to repeat what you do the best—lalalala –lalalalalalalie — “_

Dawn bounced back to the table, head bobbing to the music, tray heaped with tacos, burritos, and packets of fire sauce. She shoved a straw into a beverage cup as large as her head, and tore the paper off a burrito supreme. “I’m so freaking hungry. All I had to eat today was a pop tart, and a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie. Oh, and whipped cream on a mocha.” 

Spike blinked like a crocodile, uncrossed his arms, and laid a hand on the table, palm up. 

“What?” she said, opening a packet of fire sauce with her teeth. He wriggled his fingers. She pushed the tray closer to him. “You want the mexi-nuggets?”

“Gimme my change, you little piss ant.” 

“Jeez. Can you wait till I finish my meal?”

“Nooo. Not gonna play it that way. Not like last time. ‘Spike, can’t you wait till after the movie, ‘cause my hands are all greasy from the popcorn.’” 

“I didn’t want to get butter on my jeans!”

“You didn’t want to get butter on my money in the pocket of your jeans.”

“Once! One time. It’s not my fault you forgot to ask for it later. And that didn’t even sound like me. You so cannot do American accents.”

“You’re givin’ it back.”

“I will! Jeez.” 

He pulled his hand back, and stretched his arm along the plastic back rest, managing to look both relaxed and annoyed, while she concentrated on getting as much food in before the conversation turned to the inevitable. She got through the burrito and was working on one of the tacos when he said, “So, lucky your boyfriend happened along before you were forced to eat candy in a stranger’s car.”

“Yes. Very lucky.” She grinned around a mouthful of slimy lettuce. “Thank you, my boyfriend.” 

“Were you on your way to Taco Bell by way of Ojai?” 

“ _No._ I went to meet Tara but I forgot she’s not in the same dorm she was before — _And_ I lost my notebook with all my phone numbers.” She frowned delicately. “Or maybe it’s in my locker at school. Anyway, I didn’t have money for the bus. Why? You gonna squeal? Rat me out?” 

“Now you’re just insulting me. Clearly our love affair is over.” 

She giggled. “We’re breaking up already?”

“Don’t see as I have any options. Can’t be with a women who doesn’t respect me.”

“Yeah, right. So that leaves, who? Harmony Kendall?” Usually the mention of the H word got a rise out of him. This time it was met with silence. He was staring hard at the tabletop. “Oh my god. She’s not back is she? You’re not — tell me you’re not!” 

He looked up again, clearly not tracking “Whowhatnow? Oh, bloody hell, Dawn. Christ no! Don’t know where she is, and don’t want to.” 

“Good, because her soul didn’t take up much room in her head _before_ she got turned.” 

“It’s a very empty head, I’ll grant you.” After a second, he scratched behind his ear. Which meant he was going to get serious. “Look. Serious now. You can’t be pulling this kind of shit. You know what goes on around these parts.” 

“I know but — “

“But nuthin’. You’re not some brainless Cali girl got her head in her arse looking for the latest fashionable footwear up there.” 

“But I am! Or I mean, I’m not looking for shoes up my ass, because hey, if Buffy can’t pull money out of her ass - as she so often points out whenever I ask for any - then I sure as heck won’t find any shoes. But I’m a California girl born and raised. At least my memories say so. A normal teenaged girl who, unlike every other girl, has _no life.”_

“If you’re still on about that Am I Real Am I Memorex crap, I’m gonna thump you.” 

“That’s not it. So over that. It’s just — okay, prepare for some unattractive, but legitimate whining — “ 

“Tiny violin at the ready.” 

“Nobody wants to hang with me, OK, but they all want me safe in my house. Doing what? Homework? Dishes? Watching Green Acres marathons on Nick at Nite? I make dinner by myself, for myself. Then I watch TV by myself, then I go to bed by myself — “ Off his arched brow she added, “which, of course I do, because I’m fifteen, and going to be a nun someday.” 

“Wouldn’t. Vampires love nuns. They’re crunchy with the Lord.” 

“Uh huh. Can we get off the perve track, and back to my problems now?” 

“Please. Continue talking about yourself at great length.” 

“OK. It’s like — it’s like I’m this dog that you only pay attention to when the neighbors complain about the barking.” 

“So this is you barking loud in the night, is it?” 

“I guess. I mean, Tara’s gone, and Willow’s all depressed. And Xander and Anya are completely crazed about this wedding. Giles is off eating biscuits instead of cookies. And _you_. You never come over anymore. And why should you. Buffy’s not there.” 

“That’s not why, Bit.” 

“Even so. You probably see her more than I do.” 

“justpatroltogether.” 

“At least you get to do that! She’s never home, but she won’t let _me_ go _anywhere_. I can’t spend the night with anybody, or go to a freaking party – I swear to god, people at school think I’m Amish. Did you know she wouldn’t sign the permission slip for me to go on a field trip to see this Shakespeare thing because the bus wouldn’t get back until 10 at night? How lame is that?” 

“Shakespeare thing?” 

“Some play. Janice told me that there was a scene where this guy is completely naked, like full monty naked, and like Mr. Espinosa didn’t know there was gonna be nudity but he got in trouble for it anyway because Carrie Dentweiller’s mom is like real religious or something and it was this really big thing and I didn’t get to see it. Are you even paying attention?” 

“Some play. Shakespeare. Naked guy.” 

“Yeah. It’s not right. Buffy used to go out all the time when she was my age, and not just to slay stuff. She was sneaking out of the house to meet Angel all over town when she was sixteen. They all used to go out. Xander and Willow and everybody at their high school. They went to the Bronze, dances, movies. They were going out all the damn time even though there were vampires and monsters and Giles telling them not to. I mean, what the hell, you know? People have been living here for a hundred years or whatever, and they keep making more people, so somebody in this town must be having fun _somewhere._ Just doesn’t happen to be me. So what am I supposed to do? Bark louder?” 

“Finish your tacos for one.” He reached across for her soda. 

“You know, I was thinking … I mean, I know there isn’t much money for, you know, anything fun – “ 

“Gah! Jesus! What is this?” 

“Mountain Dew. So, anyway, what I thought was, maybe I could go with you guys? Patrolling sometimes?” 

“Whu-what?” 

“It could be like a ride along, like on COPS. I wouldn’t try to fight or anything, I’d just observe — “ 

“Yeeaah, well …” He hissed through his teeth and dragged his fingers over his neck then up through his hair so it stood up in little tufty chunks. He’d messed up his hair and wouldn’t look at her. Not a good sign. 

“Man,” she said, softly, “I didn’t think it was possible for you to look any whiter.” 

“’S the lights. See, thing is, Buffy’n me — we work in, whatcha call it, tandem. Takes-takes a lot of concentration. A lot. One misstep and we’re-we’re outa sync like. I mean, what we do? Slayer’s business? All kinds of dangerous, and _violent_ , so, so terribly violent, and — “ 

“Right.” She swallowed hard, eyes fixed on her own hands as they pulled at the bits of greasy paper on her tray. 

“Buffy’d never go for it anyway, you know that.” 

“Fine. Whatever. I’m done.” She wiped her mouth and hands with a napkin – tense, hard little motions. Now it was her turn not to look at him. 

“Niblet, come on, you know she wouldn’t listen to me,” he said, watching her cram the remains of her meal into the slot of the trash bin, followed by the heavy sloshing thump of her half-full extra large beverage. “When has she ever?” The tray was banged onto a stack of others with a fury that made the counter people jump. 

“You don’t have to give me a ride home. I can walk from here.” 

“Don’t be a git,” he said, getting up, feeling suddenly very old. His actual age, even. 

“Oh.” She thrust her hand into her tight little hip-huggers and slammed the money on the table. “And here’s your stupid damn change.” 

“Just keep it for fuck’s sake. Wasn’t serious ‘bout all that.” 

“Yes you were.” 

“Yeah, _then,_ but — Dawn!” He scooped the change off the table. “You’re not walking home alone. You know I’ll just follow you.” He was following her even as he spoke, wading through the wake of her dramatic exit to the parking lot. “Stop now. Stop! I mean it. You’re getting on the bike and I’m taking you home.” She marched right past the motorcycle, turning her nose up at it like the imperious little princess she was. So like her sister in fact, that he wanted to kiss the top of her head while tearing it from her neck. “Stop. Right now! You’re not walking home alone. It’s complete, utter nonsense! I won’t allow it.” 

She stopped. She actually _stopped_ because he said so. Paused mid-stride as if immobilized by the power of his adult authority. When she turned, he realized that, as was so often the case of late, he’d overestimated his power by quite a lot. 

“Oh my god,” she squealed, pointing at him with malicious glee. “You sounded _exactly_ like Giles!” There followed a great deal of mocking at his expense, after which she did agree to get on the bike. 

“Can’t promise about the patrolling,” he said, cigarette hanging from his lower lip, “but I’ll see if I can get her to let you off the choke chain once in a while. Won’t promise much there either … ” 

“It’s OK. Thanks.” 

“We amigos again?” 

“Si, senor.” He started the bike and she mounted up behind him, wriggling her bottom into a comfortable position. “Can I still keep the money?” she shouted over the engine. 

“You do an evil man proud, Bit.” 

***

“Althea, child, she won’t feel more’n a little prick. Like at the doctor’s. I done it to you when you was a baby and you didn’t utter so much as a cry. At my breast right after like nothin’ happened.”

“So you say, Mama, but I don’t remember it, now do I? What am I gonna tell Dave when he sees it? He’ll wonder how she got it. You know he will. He won’t understand. And I can’t lie to him. He’s my husband.”

“We’ll make it so he won’t know it’s there.”

“Bible says that man is the head of woman as God is the head of man — “

“Also says, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. What we’re doing here is none of Caesar’s business. You may be his wife, Althea, but you’re my daughter. A Moontree woman. And this child is a Moontree woman as well. We got to protect her, and we got to teach her. Otherwise — “

_Moontrees_ , Tara thought. _I know where I am now._

“He already thinks you’re touched in the head, Mama. He thinks I ought not to — He doesn’t want you spending time with the children anymore. Is that what you want? Because he can make it so.”

“Oh lord, Althea … baby …you know it’d break my heart. But I’d risk it to keep this little girl safe. That man don’t know what we know.”

“I don’t know what we know! You’ve been filling my head with this since I was born, but I can’t — it’s not how the real world is, Mama. Dave … Dave is good to me. He loves me in spite of-of what I am.” 

Even with the tenor the conversation, they were so sweet to look upon, those women, that baby, sitting on the old flying geese quilt, in a circle of white stones. They could have been enjoying a picnic, instead of doing what they so often did here – healing folks, and setting spells, and brewing potions in the old copper pot. So sweet, and so achingly young. 

“What’s he been telling you?”

“He thinks the power comes from the devil.”

“You think the gift of healing can come from such a thing?”

“Course not. But that’s not all we — “

Suddenly, both women started, and turned toward the trees. Their mouths hung open in identical slack-jawed shock for a second, then the younger woman made a panicked squealing sound and tried to scuttle back, clutching at a baby that didn’t want to be clutched. 

Tara realized they could see her now, and that’s why they were afraid. She wanted to laugh. Because she was nothing scary. But then, Granny never welcomed any spirit she didn’t invite to the circle herself. 

“Granny? Mama?” Tara said. She grinned and wiggled her fingers in a wave. “It’s just me.” 

The older woman’s face crumpled as she realized what sort of spirit was speaking to her. “Tara, oh honey. What have you done, girl?”

“It’s all right, Gran. Nothing to be afraid of. See?”

“No! Get back! Don’t come no closer — “

The baby gave an angry squeal, pressed tight against her mother’s chest. She arched her back in that powerful way of babies seeking freedom, and twisted her torso so she could look at the pretty girl in the bubble of light. Grinned like a toothless, slobbery sunbeam as she reached out one chubby little finger to pop the bubble —

Tara heard her grandmother shout something, but then it was swallowed by the white noise of rushing particles and molecules rearranging themselves, and she found herself once again sprawled on the floor of her dorm room. She was naked and cold and her palm itched. “Means expect money or a visitor soon,” she whispered to the dark.


	4. Chapter 4

Sometimes waiting for a vamp to rise was like watching paint dry. 

Which was a stupid expression, and who sat around watching paint dry, anyway? The boredom thing though? Totally relatable. Fortunately, this particular vamp was in one of the nicest family plots in Restfield, with little winding pathways and a bench for contemplating the dearly departed. Which is where Buffy sat, contemplating other things (like the fact she was at Restfield where a certain vampire of her acquaintance happened to reside,) and sipping from her free take out cup of diet coke. One of the many benefits of working for the Doublemeat Palace. All the beverages you could drink, absolutely free. Not enough bathroom breaks really …

She uncapped her pen, and opened the spanking new spiral bound notebook she’d purchased, three for a dollar. 

**_Tonight at work ( my other work, the one where I get paid even if it’s only slightly above minimum wage) this elderly man came in – very dignified, dapper, but really sweet, you could tell. He was wearing an overcoat, and carrying a hat, and a cane with a silver knob on it. Jason was at the counter and he asked may I help you, and in the sweetest, politest English accent, this old guy asks for “hot tea, if you please.”_ **

**_I swear to god, it was like the gears of the Doublemeat Palace came grinding to a halt.  
Hot tea, what do we do, we only have iced tea, the sky is falling! So, I stepped up to the mat because I have the most experience with English people. “Sir,” I said, “I’m afraid our tea is made to be served over ice, but I’d be happy to heat it in the microwave for you.” And unlike Giles he didn’t cry Travesty! Outrage! What you propose is against all the laws of God and Man. No. He politely said, “Thank you, that would be very kind.” _ **

**_He sat at one of the little tables with his cup of tea, until we had to tell him we were closing. I got the feeling he’d been watching me, which ordinarily might have creeped me out cuz let me tell you, some of the old men who come in there? Nasty. And not even demons. But I didn’t get a demon vibe. More of a kindly and solemn and maybe, anxious human kind of vibe. Anyway, after we locked up, I saw him at the bus stop across the street, and as soon as he saw me, he stood and held up a hand, “I say, miss, might I speak with you?” (He said it like that too. Cuteness.) I figured he was lost, or maybe had – oh screw it, not even gonna try to spell it – that memory loss thingy. But no, turns out he was waiting for me. Knew I was the Slayer! Apparently, he used to be with the Watcher’s Council, and lived in Sunnydale like fifty years ago! His name is Ernest Simonson Bledsoe in case you want to know. He gave me his card._ **

**_There used to be some kind of Institute doing paranormal research out where the University is now. Something about getting the jump on the Russians, he said. Which, wow, that was a long time ago if the Russians were the bad guys of the world. Those were the days, huh? Sunnydale was a really small town when he was here, mostly farms, and a couple of vineyards. He said there used to be an ice cream parlor where the DMP is now. He’s in town to visit the “old stomping grounds” as he put it, look up some old friends, but wanted to meet me because I’m notorious. He got all flustered after he said it, like he’d offended me. I said I wouldn’t mind being notorious if I could be tall like Ingrid Bergman. Then he laughed._ **

**_I used to watch Notorious with my mom whenever it was on AMC. Popcorn and hot chocolate and laughing about the fake scenery going by when they were supposed to be driving. But the love story was so great. That they thought they had to give each other up for duty and the sake of the world, but then they don’t. They screw over the bad guy and they get each other. By the time Cary found Ingrid in that room, sick from poison, me and mom would be passing the Kleenex. And it’s weird. Even though I know he’ll find her – I mean, he always does – until he actually finds her and carries her down the stairs, I’m always afraid he’s not going to find her in time. I think that might be a sign of a really good film._ **

**_I remember sometimes when I was watching it, I’d go off on this fantasy where Angel and I would be kind of like Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. Both with our terrible duties and our secret love. I’d be wearing a hat with a veil, and I’d be a lot taller of course, and he’d be wearing a tuxedo. It was all very sophisticated in my head. I can’t imagine anything like that with Sp_ **

**_Off track. Back to my story. I walked the gentleman to the Bed and Breakfast where he was staying. It wasn’t too far, but he’s old, you know. Needs a cane. Times like this I wish I could drive. Better than I do. Or, like, at all. I really need to get over this fear of my driving skills. I mean, you have to practice most things to get better at them. ~~Sp~~ DD said he’d give me lessons, but then he made all these other suggestions about driving stick and lube jobs and a bunch of other crap. I wish he wouldn’t do that sometimes. But then I think, well, he is a — what he is. And, hey, I am what I am too. But if we weren’t, I wonder, you know? Would we still be like this? Act like this to each other? _ **

**_Where was I? Oh yeah. Ernest Simonson Bledsoe (you should hear him say it – Uhnest Simunsin-Bledsuh. Of course if you were hearing him say it you wouldn’t be noticing the way he says it on account of you all talk like that so never mind.) I told him I was off work tomorrow. (Yeah, they gave me Saturday off. Why? Because they had to change the schedule because somebody quit and now I have split days off this week, so won’t be off again until Thursday and it sucks, but hey, all the beverages I can drink.) He’s going to meet me at the Magic Box around two. I wish this stupid vampire would hurry up a rise already. ~~I kind of have to pee~~._ **

***

Gosh. The Initiative sure had their fingers in a lot of pies. Just a quick look through the uncorrupted disk, and Willow found files on bio-mimetic engineering, behavior modification drugs designed for a brain chemistry that she didn’t recognize at all. A cure for liver cancer being developed from harvested demon organs. 

Amongst the papers in the box she found a sheaf of handwritten equations that appeared to be an attempt to map multi-dimensional pathways. She’d have to brush up on her calculus before she tackled that one, but it looked like someone was definitely trying to open portals to other dimensions. 

Willow had also managed to find, readily available and online, dozens of articles and papers Maggie Walsh had written. Even now her printer was busily spitting out most of them under the table at her feet. Pretty dry, technical journal, psychology stuff. None of the documentation of the more “interesting” work that Professor Gossett said had gone missing. One paper though, written as a kind of joke, was about how human beings could travel in time using memories as vehicles, which must have been the paper he referenced in his book. 

From the looks of the stuff on the uncorrupted disk, the Initiative hadn’t catalogued even half of the species Giles knew off the top of his head. Of course the demons mostly had numbers to identify them, with brief descriptions and links to other reference materials. There were only two actually named, both with the Latin prefix for human. These were the hybrids: homo-anthropophilous and homo-anthropophagous. Vampires and werewolves. She had to giggle, imagining Xander’s glee, and the reactions of Spike and Oz to these labels. There were also some intriguing notes citing studies done at an Institute for Paranormal Psychology during the 50’s and 60’s using demon infected human mind readers. She got the impression that some of these mind readers had been infected on purpose. _Very_ Spy Who Came In From the Cold War stuff. 

She’d lost the maudlin mellow from the alcohol, and her mind was now racing ahead of itself, flying on caffeine and the thrill of discovery. She scrolled up and down and sideways. Connect the dots and move through the maze, the fastest game of Tetris ever, each block a new piece of information she slotted into place. At the moment she was running a recovery program on the corrupted disk, while making notes about the properties of live blood using the margins of someone else’s notes about analogous neurotransmitters in the brain of ST32b Test Subject 4.

She’d forgotten how much she loved research, working out scientific picture puzzles with only a few key pieces. And really, wasn’t that why she’d got into magic in the first place? Because of how much it looked like chemistry and physics? Once she’d figured out that magic was chemistry and physics in metaphor – poetry with a vocabulary not only of words and ingredients, but of acts and intentions – she’d begun figuring out how to manipulate metaphor to achieve a specific result. And each branch of occult knowledge, like each branch of science, had its own history and culture, and each culture its own set of metaphors from which to draw. There were limitless ways to combine the metaphors, until eventually the practitioner became poetry itself; every thought, word, and gesture capable of writing something new into the world. 

If she’d never gone with Amy that night, never gone to Rack _(Strawberry, he’d called her! What a metaphor that was,)_ she’d still be —

The front door opened with a bang. “I’m home!” Dawn cried. “Is anybody else?”

Willow sighed. “In here,” she called. She heard the tread of another pair of feet coming up the front steps and for a fragile moment, her heart fluttered in anxiety and desperate hope before she saw who it was. Relief and disappointment. “Spike. What are you doing here?”

“Great to see you too, Will. Give us a hug then.” 

“He gave me a ride home.” Dawn said on her way to the kitchen.

“Oh. You could have called, you know. I would have come to get you.”

“Chhyeah, no offense but – “ Willow could practically hear the unspoken end of that sentence: _Never riding in a car with you again, bee-otch._ Quick. Change the subject— 

“Um …so how was the movie?”

“Movie?”

“Weren’t you going to a movie with Tara? There was a message on the machine. I thought that’s where — ”

“Oh. Oh. Yeah.” Willow heard the fridge door open, and stay open while Dawn meditated on it contents. “We ended up not going. Just hung. Ate pizza. Talked and stuff.” 

The refrigerator door closed, and many cupboards doors were opened, rifled, and shut again. In the living room, Spike was likewise rifling – through the stack of magazines on the coffee table. He chose, not surprisingly, the TV Guide. “Buffy not home yet?” 

“Kinda think you’d know if she was.” To Dawn in the kitchen she ever so casually called out, “So, how is Tara?”

“She’s good.” _Good? Good? Did she ask about me? Does she miss me? Is she—_

“When’s she gonna be back, you think?” Spike asked, oozing out of his coat and into the sofa cushions, like he was settling in for the winter. 

“I don’t know!” she snapped. 

He angled an eyeball at her. “Look who’s got her knickers in a twist? What’s the matter, Red? Love life got you down? Old black magic got you in its spell?” 

“Don’t you have evil do somewhere ?” 

“Need to talk to the Slayer.”

“What about?”

From the kitchen came an anguished cry, “Who ate all the Oreos?”

“Not that it’s your business, but she owes me money, for one.” At Willow’s expression, he added, “Bought the kid her dinner, didn’t I?” 

“Wait. I thought she _had_ dinner. Pizza with Tara. Dawn! Didn’t you say you had pizza with Tara?”

Dawn came back to the dining room, wide eyed, mouth full of a cookie-not-Oreo. “Oh, um, yeah, but that was like, hours ago. Like four or something.” She looked at Spike, trying to send him a message in semaphore with her eyebrows. Willow crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. 

“Why, you little scamp,” Spike said, the very image of completely fake outrage. “You told me you hadn’t eaten all day.” He gave Willow a helpless shrug. “Teenagers. Hollow legs. What can you do?”

“Were you even with Tara?”

Dawn sighed her most thoroughly put upon sigh, and added an eye roll of exasperation for good measure. “ _Yes._ Call her and ask if you don’t believe me.” Boldly, she went to the phone, picked it up, and held it out to Willow. “Go ahead.”

“No! I mean, no. That’s, that’s okay.” The thought of calling Tara and actually speaking to her was…too much to handle right now. But Dawn didn’t need to know that. “I believe you. _For now_.”

Dawn considered that last part for a second, then, phone in hand, blithely threw herself onto the sofa next to Spike. Spike turned on the television. Dawn handed him the bag of Chips Ahoy, and started making calls. 

Though Willow didn’t feel secure enough to actually speak with Tara. Or hear her voice. Or run into her on campus. Or look at her picture, or at anything, really, that remotely reminded her of Tara, she still wanted to hear _about_ her, pluck every tiny morsel of her from Dawnie’s bored teenaged lips. Which meant Spike had to leave. “Will ten cover it?” she asked, going to the sideboard for her wallet. He didn’t answer. “Spike?”

“Huh?”

“Will ten dollars cover the meal?”

“Oh. Well. Had to put petrol in the tank to get her home. Not cheap you know.” 

“Fine.” Willow said, and turned with a twenty in her hand, only to find he was right behind her. She hadn’t heard him move. She really hated that about vampires. 

“What’s all this?” he asked, munching on a cookie, while the other hand went through the piles on the table – poke, shuffle, poke.

“Nothing.” She gathered some papers up, shoved them into file folders. “Notes from my biology lab.” Folded the screen of the laptop down in what she hoped wasn’t a glaring attempt to be furtive. “Nothing you’d — “

Hey,” he said, grabbing up a disk. He turned it over, then turned it again, his frown of puzzlement turning quickly into bug-eyed alarm. “ _Hey_! What the hell are you doing with this?” His gaze swept over the stuff on the table and back to her. Something uncomfortably close to betrayal was in his eyes. Like she was somehow betraying him, or planning to, which was just silly, because _he_ was the one who betrayed people. She was the one who — 

Well, it _wasn’t_ betrayal, that’s for sure!

“Oh poo!” She snatched the disk from his hand and dropped it into the tin box. “Don’t be such a drama queen. Not everything is about you, OK? It’s nothing. Merely a little therapeutic research. Idle hands, et cetera.” She did a little Al Jolson wave and a sharp black snap cracked the air.

Spike gasped, and stumbled back, hand pressed to his chest. 

“Oh god,” she whispered, covering her mouth. Then a nervous mortified laugh came stuttering out. “Oopsie? Uh. Oh. Wow. Eek. Don’t know my own strength. Whoo. Sorry about that.” 

He pulled his hand away slowly and seemed surprised there wasn’t a hole where his heart should be. She could see the muscle twitching along his jaw. His eyes were a little too wide open, and he’d pressed his lips together tight. He was guarding his words and actions carefully. With a sudden guilty thrill, she realized he was afraid of her. 

“What’s going on? What are you guys talking about?” Dawn asked coming in from the living room, a twinge of panic in her voice.

He rubbed at his chest, but his eyes strayed back to the tin box on the table. “Willow’s playing at mad scientist now.” 

“No! That’s not what I’m — Spike, I’m really sorry, OK?”

He still didn’t look at her, “Yeah. All right.”

Dawn picked up a color print-out from the floor. “What’s this?”

“Demon brain X-ray or some such.” 

“Close.” Willow extracted the paper from Dawn’s fingers. “It’s a copy of a brain scan. This area here is supposed to show the levels of serotonin. But there doesn’t seem to be a heck of a lot of serotonin present. Because, why? Because it’s a vampire’s brain. Which explains _so much_ about vampires, I can’t even tell you. There’s tons of stuff like this on the disks—“ She couldn’t contain her excitement, and hoped to dodge the bullet from her magical faux pas, gung ho the troops with her enthusiasm. “Now, a lot of it’s sketchy, and there are some giant holes in the information we have, but some of this is bound to be useful. Vital, even. Maybe. Like, like this.” She snapped up the top sheet from a stack of her own notes, and held it out to Spike as evidence of her good will. “Partial schematics for the chip in your head. It’s actually not designed to detect living organisms per se, which makes sense because otherwise you’d be crippled with pain every time you walked on the grass. It’s definitely not about sentient species either, because, well, you can kill demons and you can’t kill animals. A lot of demons are sentient. Plus, most are technically living organisms, right? They eat, poop, reproduce – hence, alive. I figure the implant has to recognize something unique to mammals.” 

“Perhaps it recognizes the fact that I want kill them and drink all their blood.” He was watching her with an almost clinical reserve that made her feel guilty and irritated at the same time. 

“Perhaps. But, you don’t have an overwhelming desire to kill a cow do you?” 

“Would if I could. Live blood at least.”

“But if you could you wouldn’t bother, because if you could kill a cow you could kill a human being. The chip sends a signal, right, a shock to the brain if you try to harm a mammal? How does it know you’re getting aggressive urges towards a mammal?”

“Well, take now for instance. Definitely feel a migraine coming on.”

“So okay. That means you want to tear my head off. I get that. Is it adrenaline that triggers the effect? Do you even have adrenalin any more? And if you do, wouldn’t that trigger the chip when you’re fighting demons? So, see, point proved that it may have something to do with the properties of live blood. Oh my gosh! What if it’s something as simple as oxygenation? Not hemoglobin or platelets. None of the rarified stuff you get in a buffy coat — “

“What’s Buffy’s coat got to do with anything?” Spike asked.

“Did she get that coat from The Limited? ‘Cause that’s so not fair. She doesn’t even need another coat — “ 

Willow took a deep breath and counted to ten. “No. Buffy didn’t get a new coat. I’m talking about a blood product full of leukocyte goodness. You have to spin the blood really hard in a centrifuge, then collect the top layer of white cells and platelets — “ Both sets of eyes glazed over. “Never mind, not important for you to know. What is important, Mr. Chip, is I’m thinking if I can figure out how the signal works, what actually triggers it – “

“You might could shut it off, then?”

“Oh! Oh god no, I wouldn’t do that. What am I an idiot? No. Absolutely no. But, okay, what about this? What if I could figure out how to _adjust_ the signal so it can distinguish between _intent_ to harm and defense _from_ harm, huh? You could beat up the human baddies then. Which would make you a much more effective fighting   
tool — “ 

Dawn snickered. “She called you a tool.” 

“Or force. Fighting _force_ ,” Willow amended. Spike’s hooded gaze was starting to make her feel like a bug squirming on a pin. “Fighting guy?”

“You fixing to build yourself an army, Red?”

“What? No. Of course not. I don’t even like to play Risk.”

“Oh, you’d play if you knew you could win. That’s only way you like to play, isn’t it? S’all right. Got you sussed. That little addiction to magic is the least of your problems.”

Well, he was just talking out his ass now! Trying to save face and come over all big evil because she’d put a little scare in him. Fine. “I should know better by now, than to try and help you.” 

“Help me? Ta _ever so._ You’ll be sure to let me know when it’s bowing and scraping time, won’t you? Jesus, you’re a piece o’ work, you are.” 

“You don’t know anything about me — “

Suddenly he was in her face, and her heart was beating in her throat, and she was _that_ close to peeing right on the floor. “I know all about hubris, little girl.” His voice was a subsonic rumble that rattled her bones. “Can cry victim all I want, but know bloody well why it is I’m standing here with this high tech muzzle in my head. So I can say with some authority that your hubris is gonna be what takes you down. Pride goeth before a fall, yeah? And I’m gonna be right there, with a couple of beers and a pack of smokes watching your plunge into the abyss. One thing though. Till then? You better stay the hell out of my head. You got me?” 

Then, quick as a blink, the front door was slamming shut, and he was gone. Willow collapsed into the nearest available chair. 

Dawn gazed at the door, which was still reverberating from his mighty slamming of it. “Wow. That was … that was pretty intense. Um. Going to bed now.” She started up the stairs sedately enough, but about a third of the way she was running up them fast as her long legs could carry her. 

Willow sat with her head in her hands for a little while, feeling as shaky and fragile as she had when she’d found the box of magic in the basement. After a few minutes, a muted scraping across the floor above made her lift her head and listen harder. Then she started to cry. 

Dawn was pushing her dresser in front of her bedroom door.

***

Buffy heard the muffled pounding from beneath the ground. “God, finally,” she said. She capped her pen, and with a vague sense of déjà vu put the notebook on the bench next to her diet coke. A fist punched up through the earth followed by the rest of the vampire’s body. It was female this time. Long red hair, a little worse for grave dirt but sporting a really good cut, framed the usual bumpy brow and leonine cheekbones. Her pointy teeth hinted of porcelain veneers in her former life, and a lot of orthodontic work in her early teens. The vampire didn’t spare a glance for the Slayer, instead taking the opportunity to brush off her elegant black sheath dress with the narrow flounced hem and the asymmetrically draped hip sash.

Buffy’s mouth fell open, “Is that Dolce and Gabbana?”

“Yes,” the vampire said, before eyeing her up and down with a sneer. “Is that Burger King?”

Buffy looked down at her uniform, awash in the shame of the fast food service industry once again. She brushed her hair back from her face and thrust her chin out. “No point in wearing my designer clothes when I know they’ll just be covered in vampire dust by the end of the night.” 

The vampire scoffed. _Scoffed!_ “Oh honey, if I weren’t so hungry right now, I’d be as far away from your stinky little, trailer trash self as my newly swift feet could carry me.” She stuck out a pointy toe, momentarily lost in admiration of said swift feet.

Buffy seethed anew, feeling a sudden solidarity with trailer trash everywhere as she realized the bitch was wearing Manolo Blahnik satin slingbacks. “If you weren’t so stupid you’d be running already.”

Another attempt at scoffing brought a swift fist to the nose. And then they were at it, full tilt. She’d been all prepared to make it a quick kill, like a compassionate vet putting down a sick dog, but Designing Vampire had crossed the line. Buffy was gonna kick rich girl ass, stake her hard, and then leave her dusty remains in a fitting room at the Dress Barn. Unfortunately, she was spending entirely too much time in the pre-dust period wondering how she could convince the bitch to take off the shoes first. And oh my god! How she could even consider wearing the shoes of a dead person anyway? Why hadn’t her current circumstances made her more humble and sympathetic to the plight of designer shoe-less peoples everywhere? What the hell was wrong with her? While pondering these and other questions, she failed to dodge a six inch heel to the solar plexus, which sent her tumbling over the bench in a flail of arms and legs. Spilled her coke all over her diary. (Which was why she’d had that déjà vu moment, damn it.) 

The vampire stood there with her French manicured hand on her asymmetric hip sash, looking as down on somebody as looking down could possibly get. “I was thinking for a minute or two, that after a soak in bleach you might make a good minion. You know, drawing my bath, flaying my victims, dusting, vacuuming, mopping floors, but … I can see you really have no marketable skills whatso — Ow.” 

“More of a calling really,” Buffy said, slipping the stake into the elastic waistband of her very ugly poly/nylon gabardine trousers. She picked up the notebook and shook off the excess cola. A lost cause. Another lost cause. She still had to pee, and for some stupid reason, that made her burst into tears.

***

He knew she was inside of course. Didn’t know if he had the juice for her tonight, not for the fucking or the fighting, not after that business with Willow. God, he was sick of the lot of them, really. Why he just didn’t quit this town and — 

The why was in there. 

He took another long pull from his cigarette, down to the filter, then tossed it aside. Cradling his newly purchased six pack beneath his arm in case she took a notion to bowl him over at the knee level as soon as he came through the door, he took a deep breath and entered his crypt. 

She was sitting in his chair staring at the television with the sound off. Still in her uniform from the DMP. “Evening, Slayer. How good of you to call first.”

“Get a phone, then we’ll talk.”

“Really?”

“No.” She turned her head his way. “Where’ve you been?”

He went to the fridge and put the six pack inside. “Didn’t know I was required to keep you apprised of my itinerary.” Grabbed a bottle and twisted off the cap, waved it at her by way of an offer. She wrinkled her nose in prissy refusal.

“Itinerary?” she said.

“Yes. Itinerary. The route of a journey or proposed outline of one. A travel diary — “

“I know what it means. Since when do you have one?”

“Since none of your business.”

“Actually, it is. Slayer. Vampire.”

“Oh, get off your high horse. Or get on mine.” The obligatory leer felt a bit off tonight, not like she’d know the difference. “We both know why you’re here. Had a rough night at work, sweetheart? Need me to make it better?” He gave her a mock salute with his beer. “Give me chance to get in the mood.”

“Thought you were always in the mood.”

“Yeah, ‘bout that. Would it kill you to shower ‘fore you came by to be serviced? ‘S not like I’m getting paid to be yer stud, you know.” 

Instead of buggerin’ off in a righteous snit like he’d hoped, she went all Keene-like big-eyed waif on him! And what was he supposed to do with the little match-girl from hell, gathering up her coat, sad trembling lip and fat viscous tears rolling down her face like he’d just kicked her puppy and ran over her cat? 

Abandon his beer and rush to her side of course, “Didn’t mean it, petal, didn’t mean any of it, I’m a bad rude man, a right bastard, an evil blood sucking fiend who doesn’t deserve to be on the same planet with a sweet-smelling blossom the likes of you.” 

She started to laugh, but decided she was much too crushed and angry for that. “You _asshole_.” Hard little fists hammered his chest, painful but merely a token compared to her usual. “Dastardly. Demon. Dick. Asshole bastard!” 

Dastardly. That was a new one. Needed a mustache to twirl to pull that one off. 

“I know. I know,” he agreed soothingly. He swept her up in the cradle of his arms, sat back down in the chair with her nestled in his lap, and she let him. “Ought to boil me in oil, horsewhip me, drip candle wax on my privates, make me sniff your armpits until I   
swoon — “

“Told you I wasn’t gonna do any of that when you asked before. Anyway, it’s not like you’re getting _paid_ to suffer the smelliness of me, remember?” 

“Buffy, I’m sorry. Was in a mood. Didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did. I stink!”

And then she was in tears again. Wailing her anger and despair and humiliation onto his shirt. He caught something about shoes, and a barn, and peeing on the dead, and —

“Oh god. I could lose the house! We’d have to live in a mobile home in that trailer park near the dam!”

“Or … here’s another option. You could rent a flat of some sort.”

“None of the vampires respect me anymore.”

“Which vamps are those, honey?”

“Well, mostly they’re dust now, but they’re all being really condescending and mean to me before I kill ‘em. All la di da, we’re so cool, we’re free to pursue careers in mayhem, while you have to clean the grease trap, and scrape the gum from under the tables of Corporate America.” She sniffled, then wiped her face and nose on his shirt. Completely on purpose, of course. Just to see how he’d react. When he didn’t, she whispered, “You smelled the smell. You think I stink.” 

“In the best way. All the time. All over.”

She snorted. “Please. I need a shower. I know that. I’m sticky. And gross.” 

“Sticky sweet.” He brushed his lips over her damp cheek and on up. Right next to her ear. “Love the way you smell right now, squirming in my lap.” He felt her shudder and slipped his hand into the tight vee of her closed thighs. 

“Shut up,” she said, sitting straighter, wiping her eyes. But her legs parted for his hand. He cupped her sex, roughed the heel of his palm over the polyester gabardine in a soothing rhythm. Soft and slow. Soft and slow. She rocked a little against his palm, her mind still on her troubles, her body moving on to something nicer. “There’s only one scent you give off that drives me right round the bend,” he murmured. “Can’t smell anything else most of the time. Sticks to all my senses like butterscotch.” 

She drew in a little breath, closed her eyes, and twisted her hands into his messy shirt. He leaned in to kiss her. Through the rough fabric of her trousers, the liquid heat of her cunt leapt to his hand like water to a dowsing rod.


	5. Chapter 5

There were three things Xander Harris had vowed never to do no matter how long he lived. Number one was never to invite a vampire into his home, and, much to his everlasting regret, he'd already done that. Number three he was doing right now. 

He wouldn’t be doing this at all if he didn’t really need a copy of this week’s People Magazine. _Beep_. Oh, and these Lifesavers. _Beep_. Pack of gum. _Beep_. This nifty pen flashlight. _Beep._ And…condoms! Yeah. Condoms were manly as all hell. _Beep._ A couple of lighters. _Beep Beep_. 

The girl at the counter waved the final items – box of tampons and a bottle of Midol – across the scanner. “That’ll be twenty-two dollars and 86 cents, sir.” She was way too perky for someone working the nightshift at a Sunnydale convenience store.

He opened his wallet. Damn. He only had a twenty. “Uh. OK. Lose the flashlight and um, the lighters.” 

She gave him a grin he was trying very hard not to see as smirky, and entered a code with her nimble fingers, scanned the items again in reverse beepology. “You’re either the best boyfriend in the world or — ”

“Think the word you’re looking for, luv, is _whipped._ ”

Xander shuddered. Oh god, no. “And my night is now complete.” 

Counter girl had a different sort of grin for bleachboy. “Hey Spike.” _Oh. Of course. She knows him by name._

“Angie.” _And he knows hers too. Well, hers is on her name tag, but still_ — “My usual, if you please. After you’ve finished bagging the boy’s unmentionables, that is. Woe is you, Harris. Sorry excuse for a man, you are. Wouldn’t catch me making a late night run for some bird’s monthly paraphernalia.” He thrust a hand in his jeans pocket and spent an inordinate amount of time digging around in there. “I’ve still got my … whatcha call it?” He pulled out a five and slapped it on the counter. “Oh yeah, balls.” 

“I think it’s sweet.” Angie offered. “You are a god among boyfriends.” She handed Xander his purchases in bright blue plastic bag. 

“Thank you,” he said with great sincerity. But she was already turning towards the wall of cigarettes behind her. 

As soon as he was outside, under the hiss and glow of the Sunnydale Save-Rite sign, he had his keys in hand, targeting the car door. He needed to be in the car and gone before Spike emerged. If the son of a bitch came out the door right now, Xander would have to slow down to a “you’re not even on my radar” stroll. Under no circumstances could he appear to be scurrying or rushing to get away from Evil Dead. It was a guy thing. Genetically hardwired, like spitting. He was helpless against it. Spike would do exactly the same thing if their roles were reversed. 

Car door open. Behind the wheel. Door closed. Locked. Key in ignition. OK. 

Oh hell, he forgot the ice cream! Shit. No. No. No way in hell was he gonna let that fucker see him exchanging condoms for Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. Just drive slowly around the block. Give Spike a chance to be good and gone. 

Or…he could just keep driving. He could head to the coast, take Highway 1, drive to San Diego, then on to Mexico. He could live on the beach. Learn to surf. He always wanted to learn to surf. Yeah. Drink tequila. Eat shrimp and coconuts. Or whatever kind of nuts they have in Mexico. No one to answer to. Be his own man. Be free. No responsibilities. No demons taking potshots at him. No 9 to 5 plus overtime. No An —

“Oh god …” _God, god, god, god. What am I going to do? I don’t think I can do this. I can’t do this. I’m only twenty-one. I haven’t learned to surf or sky-dive or gone rock climbing or been to Star Trek convention. Lord of the Rings just came out! There are two more movies to go! She doesn’t even like Lord of the Rings. How can I marry a woman who doesn’t like Lord of the Rings? How can I marry a woman who worked for the Dark Lord himself? Next year I could be buying disposable diapers instead of tampons. Oh god —_

He must have closed his eyes for a second, or banged his forehead on the steering wheel one too many times, because when he looked up, there was a guy – a thing – a guy thing in the path of his car. He stomped on the brakes, swerved, but too late. 

Spike paused, as he always did when the alarm went off. He ventured a long-suffering look over his shoulder at Angie, who grinned and made a shooing gesture. She likely thought it was something about him that set the EAS devices shrieking every time he left Save-Rite. His natural electromagnetism perhaps. He always purchased _something._ One thing at least. He was practically an upstanding citizen these days. 

He tapped a cigarette out, lit up. Never upstanding enough, though. Not for _her_. Little Miss “I’m Too Uptight for My Pants” Summers liked him right where he was. Kept well hidden at the back of the cupboard so she could play with her matches in secret, thinking she couldn’t get burned if nobody knew. 

Well, he had news for her. He _was_ fire. And she was gonna get burned bad if she didn’t treat him some better. He wasn’t a toy she could trot out when the mood was on her. He had feelings. Opinions. And, and – insights! 

Yeah. All right. Probably shouldn’t have brought up Dawn’s appeal so soon after the fucking. Timing was off on that. But she’d seemed so pliant and amenable, sitting on his lap with his prick still in her, spent, melted into him, her head in the crook of his neck. His timing was never on with the Slayer these days, unless it was about where to put his fingers, tongue, cock, and when. Well, this was it. He was through with the bitch. Made that pretty clear, he thought. 

Bitch. Where’d she get off telling him he’d better unattach himself from her sister and right quick? Telling him he didn’t have a place in the girl’s life. Didn’t he take care of the kid all summer when Buffy was worm food and the rest of ‘em were sacrificing babies or what all to bring her back? If he was the sorta fella who unattached himself just like that, would he still be hanging about this bog? Hell no! He’d’ve left with Dru when she offered. He’d be in South America somewhere letting his mad princess feed him blood and honey from her own sweet tits —

Or maybe not. Aw, fuck it. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the ball he’d nicked. Funny Fun Ball, the package said. Made in Taiwan. The shape and color had appealed to him. Neon green rubber, spiked all over like a mace, bright and bold, just daring him to find out what made it funny fun. Neither Harris nor the shop girl had noticed this extra ball of funny fun in his trousers. People were always careful not to notice that part of a gent’s anatomy, even when they couldn’t help but notice it didn’t look altogether normal.

He tore off the crinkle-wrap, and gave the ball an experimental bounce. To his delight, flashing lights went off inside, popping like fireworks, green, blue, red. He caught it and bounced it again. Damn. It _was_ funny and fun. It was bloody brilliant this ball! 

“God bless the Chinese,” he said to no one in particular. Somewhere close by came the screech and thud of a car impacting a body. The promise of blood and guts. Clearly this was a lucky ball. 

Spike strolled off to investigate with naught but the glow of his cigarette and his Funny Fun ball to light the way. 

“Oh shit! Oh my god. Oh god!” Xander flung open the door and practically fell out, scrambled to his feet, and stumbled over to the – the thing he’d hit. It was not a guy. Not a girl either. Definitely a thing. A thing with antennae. And scales. Sprawled face down in the middle of Crawford Street. Two limbs for walking (in front of a car) and two for waving (frantically for the car to stop). He couldn’t see any blood. Or anything that passed for blood. It wasn’t moving. He was torn between the urge to call an ambulance and the urge to flee the scene of the crime. Neither of which was an appropriate action under the circumstances. 

He’d hit a demon with his car. And not even on purpose. Fuck! He turned to examine the damage to his car, but could only stare open mouthed at what he saw. The entire front end looked like it was halfway into Toontown. The bumper hung in a rubbery droop to the ground. Letters and numbers dripped like snot from the license plate. He expected it to cough melodramatically and say, “I’m done for. Go on without me. Save yourself.” 

One headlight was actually broken. Glass crunched beneath his shoes as he cautiously approached. The other headlight was bulging out like a molten bubble. He bent closer, resisting the urge to touch – which was exactly the kind of horror movie moment that any demon with half a brain would have used to leap up from seeming death and split him open with a razor-sharp claw. 

“Well, well,” said a demon with half a brain, “looks like Dan’l Boone kilt hisself a bar.”

Xander straightened with a sigh, then wearily dug his fists into his eye sockets. “Spike. Shut the fuck up, OK?”

“Crikey, Harris. Look what it did to your car!”

“Yes. I _see_ it. I’m looking at it right now.” He took his fists away from his eyes so that his statement would be true, but instead he found himself ensnared by the vampire’s unnerving appraisal, that particular look Spike had, eyes slightly squinty and his head cocked just so. Sizing him up. Always sizing him up and finding him lacking. 

Aware of the nervous dart of his gaze and hating himself for it, Xander looked instead at the empty lot between Crawford and Alta Vista. Were there more of the creatures in that weed infested real estate investment opportunity? He hadn’t been on Crawford Street in a while, and remembered in a sudden rush of inexplicable shame how he’d walked this very road with Buffy on their way to the mansion at the top of the hill. A tiny girl with a big sword, and him encouraging her to kick her true love’s ass. He’d been right not to tell her about Willow’s efforts to restore Angel’s soul, he knew that then and he knew it now. She would have waited too long and ended up dead at Angel’s hand. Maybe they all would have ended that way. Certainly his own life would be a very different thing now. 

Anxiety washed over him again. A wave of helplessness, as if his destiny had been poured into rapidly hardening plaster, and all he could do was watch it set up. 

Spike prodded the body with the toe of a boot. An oddly graceful maneuver with self-same boot rolled the hefty creature over onto its back. “Hey,” Spike said, “this is one of those things me and Buffy killed the other night in her backyard. Said she’d done for one of ‘em over on Alta Vista too.” He looked at the empty lot as well, and the street on the far side of it. 

Xander resisted the urge to ask why Spike had been in Buffy’s backyard. “You think there might be more of them hiding in there?”

“Could be. Don’t know about these sort, what their habits are.”

“Should we go check it out?”

Spike seemed surprised at the offer. Then he grinned. “I’ll have a look. No need for you to come along. ’Spect your honey’s getting a bit frantic over the whereabouts of her tampons.”

Xander sucked in air through his teeth. “Yeah. Right.” He turned back to the car and did a double take. Except for the broken headlight, the front end was back to normal. A little dented, but otherwise solid. 

“Well, that’s just fucking weird,” Spike said. 

“No shit.” The driver’s side door was still open, and he touched it gingerly. It seemed to be holding on well enough. “I’ll call Buffy when I get home. Let her know what’s going on.”

“Don’t! I mean, no need, is there. She’s – she’ll be needed all the beauty rest she can get. Looking like a right hag of late. I’ll take care of it.”

“Really? All by your lonesome?” 

Spike shrugged. “Nothing else to do.”

“You sure?” 

“Yeah,” Spike said, and reached in his coat pocket. If the cigarettes were coming out, Xander figured the conversation was over. As he got in behind the wheel something hit the side of his car. He jumped, bumped his knee on the steering column. Another impact against the fender, softer this time. Spike was bouncing a ball off his car. A quirky little rubber ball that flashed bright colors, angling off in unexpected directions, deftly caught by Spike every single time It was hard to be pissed off when you were suddenly smiling for no good reason. “Cool,” he said. 

Spike threw it again. “Innit?” 

“Where’d you get it?”

“Save-Rite.”

“I’m gonna go back and get one.”

“Don’t get green,” Spike said. 

“Like I’d want the same color you have.” A glance in the rearview mirror as he drove away, showed a lump in the road, and a sphere of flashing lights spinning in the air. He totally had to get one of those. 

As soon as Harris’s car rounded the corner, Spike bounced the ball one last time and then into his pocket. Time to set aside childish things. He crouched next to the demon for a quick once over. It wasn’t dead. He was pretty sure of that. Else it wouldn’t still be lying on the tarmac. The bubble gut had collapsed, and looked more like a flaccid kangaroo’s pouch. Up close and personal it in no way resembled one of those dreadful cheery teletubbies Buffy’d blithely compared it to. It looked wizened, sorrowful. He didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t like not knowing. He gave it a poke. “Oi. You. Wakey, wakey. Come on.” A harder thrust with his hand. “Got questions if you’ve got speech.” 

Quick as blink, no – quicker, as if no time had passed between the then and the now, the demon had its claw clenched about his poking hand. “Tie me,” it croaked. 

Spike thought this an unusual request. Especially from a demon who was currently crushing the bones in his wrist. “Well, happy to oblige, mate, but I’m fresh out of rope you see — “

“TYee MINGa.”

“That your name?” he asked. He couldn’t seem to move any part of his body but his mouth and tried to keep the panic out of his voice. “Name o’ your kind?”

“Timing,” it burbled softly. The membranes over its eyes squished together, and parted again. 

“Timing? As in the timing’s all wrong or … timing’s a bit off. Know all about that mate. Just broke off with my girl see and I’m gonna need that wrist to operate my hand, much wanking to be done, oh god — ” 

He gasped, hard clenching spasms of his lungs, like he needed to breathe and couldn’t. Drowning. The eyes were black mirrors and he could see himself inside them. “Oh my god…” 

“Moon. Tree. Lines.” 

He could _see_ himself. Not as a reflection, but his true, fundamental self – Spike, William, whatever name, didn’t matter – everything he’d been, was now, or would be, was looking out of its eyes. He was looking out at himself and felt the nauseous pull of vertigo. Felt himself falling. Falling into himself. 

“Let go,” he whispered. Then, “Please.”

“Go. Set. Time.” 

There was a sound then. Like a heavy exhalation. The loudest, longest sigh ever. An odor, sweet and sharp at once, assailed his senses before the demon dissipated utterly, leaving only a bracelet of silvery gel around his wrist. It burned like dry ice. After a moment even that evidence of the demon was gone. A delicate tracery lingered, of something not quite memory and not quite scent. 

Spike fell back on his arse in the middle of the street, and sat there for a while of time staring at the empty lot across from him. He wouldn’t be investigating that any time soon.

***

Saturday. Noonish.   
**_Look. Another journal! A nice one too, with really nice paper, and inspirational quotes at the top of each page. This page has, “To thine own self be true.” Which I know is from Hamlet, so there. (I probably shouldn’t mention that every time I read this quote I hear the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island singing it. I mean, we studied the play in school, but that song just sticks in your head forever, you know?)_**

**_I think this journal was a present from Dawn one X-mas. Mom probably suggested it, “get her a new diary,” she probably said. So Dawn got one without a lock. Clever girl. I found it this morning cleaning out my closet. I’m going to take a bunch of shoes and clothes to this shop Anya told me about. Twice Upon a Time, or something like that. But I’m just going to sell stuff. No trades. No shopping. This vow I solemnly make to the Goddess of Jasmine Foaming Body Wash._ **

**_Yes, I’m tempting fate. I’m writing this in the bathtub._ **

**_Last night was not my best slaying night. Or any kind of night. I’m PMS-ing bad. And hey, it’s something you Watchers should know about. It’s scientific. Like sometimes I really kick ass when I’m PMS-ing, because hey, the inner bitch is an outie those times. But then other times I mostly drop things and fall down a lot. Also burst into tears for no reason. Slayers probably should get written excuses from their Watcher’s to skip slaying those nights. We should probably be at home watching Pretty Woman._ **

**_Only one vampire last night. One that I actually dusted that is. Visited DD after. Had a meltdown. Then we did some stuff. Did not end well. Whenever we have nice normal ~~sex~~ stuff, he starts thinking we’re like b/f and g/f. Wants to talk. But I’m not gonna talk. Especially about my family! Like he’s part of that. He’s not any part of that. He can’t ever be any part of that. He’s not supposed to be — I have to keep some things very, very separate. In different boxes. I have my own labeling system so I know what’s in them but no body else needs to know what’s in my personal private boxes, and the things from one box should never go in with the stuff from another box because —_ **

**_No._ **

**_It’s more like there’s this line down the middle of me, and he’s on one side and everyone else is on the other side. He has to stay on his side of the line, see? And they have to stay on theirs. Because if one side starts crossing the line then lines will be crossed that can never get uncrossed and there will be blurring and fuzziness and yelling —_ **

**_God. I sound completely psychotic when I try to metaphor things. Even to myself._ **

**_What I can’t figure out is – the things he does to me, the things he let’s me do – I think I shouldn’t like them. I mean, okay, I had sex with Riley a lot. And I really liked it. It was great sex. I mean, if a girl has orgasms pretty much every time, that’s good sex right? But this, with DD, is very different. Beyond anything so simple as good sex or bad sex. It’s like I forget everything for hours and hours. I’m just this body that feels pleasure or pain (sometimes at the same time, sometimes I can’t tell the difference, one turns into the other and) and I’m afraid it’s because of what he is. And what I am. That I’m really screwed up. And that somehow, in my mind, he doesn’t really matter, he isn’t a person, so I can do anything with him. To him. That’s horrible, isn’t it? It makes me feel dirty and bad. Because even though he’s not human, strictly, per se, he still is kind of like a person. Or at least he has a personality. And he thinks he loves me and maybe he does. What do I know about love? I suck at love._ **

**_I think maybe it’s possible I hurt his feelings. He got really mad anyway. Threw me out. Literally. Picked me up and threw me out the door then slammed it in my face! Which pissed me off. A lot. I got up and went to push the door open again, so I could say fuck off and then slam it in his face. But he was pushing on it from the other side. And there we were, pushing and pushing, and the door wasn’t moving, and I’m calling him names and he’s calling me names. We must have looked like complete idiots. I’m already the laughing stock of the vampire community. I just hope none of them saw me. _ **

**_I think it’s really over. I think he broke up with me this time. I think I should be relieved. But I’m not. I just feel —_ **

Buffy growled, ripped the pages from the journal and proceeded to tear them into tiny bubble covered slivers. She flung them in vicinity of the waste basket, then flung the journal in the vicinity of the sink. She slid down into the water until she was completely submerged, and stayed that way for a good almost-minute before Dawn’s persistent knocking and screechy voice penetrated the deep like really annoying whale song. 

It was time to get out of the tub anyway. The sun was shining, and half her only day off was gone. She had clothes to sell, and a date to keep with sweet elderly Watcher who would tell her tales of the olden days when Slayers were Slayers and Vampires were Vampires and never the twain would meet in any sexy groping fashion. As it should be. As nature intended.


	6. Chapter 6

Time Travel for Pedestrians  
Chapter 6

Ernest Simonson Bledsoe sat at a small table in the front parlor café of MacIvor’s Bed and Breakfast, pretending to savor his turkey sandwich on brown bread. Aaron Gossett sat at a table on the other side of the room, reading the Sunnydale Weekly and working on his third cup of coffee. They’d exchanged the polite nods and vague smiles of strangers. It was clear Gossett didn’t recognize him. 

And why should he? Few creatures on Earth could look into the face of a young man in his prime and see the wizened old fellow he would someday become. Forty-four years had passed for Ernest. For Mr. Gossett, none at all it would seem. 

The Varo woman – the vampire – wasn’t with him. Naturally not. It was barely after noon. She was sleeping the sleep of the dead no doubt, having taken separate, less conspicuous lodgings at the Dew Drop Inn just off the Interstate exit. An exit that hadn’t existed when last he’d been in Sunnydale. Nor had the freeway for that matter. 

A curious partnership – Gossett and his vampire paramour. Worthy of study, would that he had the time. Or if he were remotely capable of objectivity in regards the pair. Still, some part of his old Watcher’s heart yearned for the opportunity to document their aberrant coupling. Although it was not unheard of for a vampire to keep a human for a number days or more rarely, weeks, Ernest knew of no examples wherein a human kept a vampire, let alone maintained the relationship for decades. 

He _had,_ however, made it a point to learn all he could about who they were, and what they’d been hoping to achieve those forty-four years ago when he’d first encountered them. 

For example, he knew Sorcha Varo was born in Brazil, and had been living in Greenwich Village for six months before she was turned sometime in the late fall of 1953. He knew she was an artist of a sort, whose work consisted of objects found in rubbish tips intermixed with palmistry charts and various clichéd occult symbols. Glass fuses, and wire tracings, clockwork gears turning the broken wings of angels, provocative little titles seemingly unrelated to the work itself, such as _**Tantric Morphia Tango**_ or _**Time Offers Jesus a Cigarette.**_ She practiced Santaria, was considered to be very beautiful, and, some believed, slightly mad. Before she disappeared (“foul play suspected” the papers said, and rightly so) friends claimed she’d taken a new lover. The lover may or may not have been a vampire. May or may not have been Aaron Gossett. Gossett was obviously not a vampire, but vampires were part of the theoretical machine he was building. Ernest suspected collusion of some sort. He wondered if she knew. 

Of Gossett himself he’d learned very little that he didn’t already know. One charming, manipulative, dangerous man with an agenda. Certainly no ordinary human being. Perhaps not human at all. 

The bastard looked _exactly_ the same – same sharp blue eyes, same smug assurance. Less Brilliantine in his hair. Whiter teeth. Black levis instead of chino. 

Ernest watched intently as Gossett raised the cup to his lips. Was the scar still there, in the palm of his left hand? Surely it must be! It was the shackle that anchored him to this plane of existence. If Luella had understood it right, then Gossett had only few months at best to accomplish his grand plan. Less, if the Manipura caught up with him. 

Ernest’s heart clenched. He, too, was running out of time. The doctors called his condition restrictive cardiomyopathy, but he knew it for what it really was. He knew the root and the source and the shameful cause of it. 

Luella. 

Sunnydale, California. 1957

Three pickled eggs, half a fried chicken, and a jar of peaches got her all the way from Chattanooga to Hollywood. Well, downtown Los Angeles leastways, and by the time she got there she was gnawing bones and drinking syrup from the jar. She’d spent the night on a bench in the Greyhound station. Had to witch herself invisible to get any kind of sleep at all on account of prowlers. She didn’t have to be smacked upside her head to know there were men preyed on girls like her. Weren’t none of those men could make a girl an overnight sensation no matter what they said – ‘cept in the way a girl might regret the next morning, and maybe for the rest of her life. 

Well, there weren’t no Hollywood stars in her eyes. She was on a different path to glory. Though she probably ought to be more humble about it. 

At four in the morning she caught a battered old bus that was taking Mexicans and Indians north to pick fruit. Cost her five dollars and a small glamour to convince the driver to let her ride. He wasn’t going Route 12 though, so he’d only take her as far as the gas station half a mile outside Sunnydale. She walked till she came to Main Street, walked past Wilkins Feed and Grain, crossed over to Dick’s Five and Dime, past RW Drygoods, until she felt the pull and tug of _him_ , and even then she almost walked by. 

He was sitting in Edna May’s Diner reading the newspaper, eating bacon and eggs like a regular Joe. She could see his face in profile through the window, fine-boned and long-nosed. A lock of hair, glossy with Brilliantine, fell across his forehead just like Superman’s in the comic books. His baggy tweed jacket – same one he’d worn when he’d come to her daddy’s house in Sevierville – hung over the back of his chair. 

She flexed her palm, felt the tingle of the secret line there. He’d traveled halfway round the world to find her and all because of the line. Called it rare, and a gift. Nothing she didn’t already know, but when _he_ said it, when he looked into her eyes and smiled that way, like he could see her soul shining through her skin – well, it seemed different somehow, not just something she’d always had. The Moontree mark. Passed down from great-great granny Selkie Moontree through the women in the family. The women with the mark always kept the Moontree name whether they married or not. 

No one ever questioned that practice, nor talked about the mark or what it meant, though each woman had her own special way of using it. Momma called hers Jacob’s ladder. Granny Nester called hers the “’twixt and ‘tween.” Aunty Beebe’s was Jumper. 

Luella’s was a whirligig, ‘cause it reminded her of the toy Daddy made her when she was little. A button on a twisted string. When you yanked the string taut, the button skated back and forth, and made a humming sound. Her mark was like that. The Englishman said she could do great things if she learned to focus it, to harness and direct, if she came out to the Institute in California and studied real hard. “You a teacher?” she’d asked him. “Of a sort,” he’d replied in that sugar voice. “Though I suspect you have more to teach me than I could ever hope to teach you.” 

He knew some things about the line in her palm she’d hadn’t even told Momma, things she’d only just discovered herself. The way she could move herself along the line like a button on a whirlygig string. 

Now here she was, run away from home, facing her destiny, and she was almost too scared to move. As soon as she opened that door, her whole life changed. But then again, any door you opened up offered change of some kind. She took a deep breath, clenched her fist over the mark a couple of times, and went inside directly to his table. 

“Mr. Bledsoe? You remember me, sir?”

He looked up. His eyes were the same mossy gray green she remembered. “Miss Moontree! Of course. What a pleasant surprise. I must say I never expected to see you again. Your father changed his mind, did he?”

“No sir, he did not. But I just spent three days on a bus to get here, and I reckon I ain’t going back, even if you changed your mind ‘bout me. So I hope you ain’t. Changed your mind that is.”

“No. No, indeed I have not. Please. Sit down. You must be famished.” 

“Oh, I ain’t all that hungry.”

“Nonsense. Young people are always hungry. You needn’t worry about the cost. You heard me tell your father the Institute would cover all your living expenses, didn’t you?” He cocked his head and smiled. She could feel herself getting flushed. “Come now. You don’t think you could find room for pancakes?”

“I reckon that’d be all right.”

***

“— all right?” 

Ernest started, blinked. Gossett was peering at him with a sincere look of concern. Was the man speaking to him? Dear god. “What?” 

“I asked if you were all right. You’ve gone all pale and clammy.”

“It’s nothing really. The – the sandwich. Repeating on me, is all.” The fist around his heart clenched again and he gasped. Gossett started to rise. “No. Don’t. Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll be fine.” He flailed about for his walking stick and staggered to his feet, knocking the table, the chair. “I’m-I’m late for an appointment. Excuse me.” 

Out on the street, he fumbled his pocket for the pills. Swallowed one dry and wiped his face with a handkerchief. What in God’s name had he been thinking? Risking exposure like that? Practically daring the man to realize just who it was sitting across from him. Egotistical, doddering old fool! He was running out of time. 

Time. He would have laughed if he could find the breath for it. It was only a matter of Time, wasn’t it? A matter of time before Aaron Gossett found the Timer. Before he turned it and used it and wreaked havoc upon the world. What little knowledge Ernest had gleaned over the years would be years wasted if he never got the opportunity to tell someone who might be able to use it. And that someone currently waited for him at a little shop up the street. He just had to get there. 

***

The resale shop was a total bust. Anya had neglected to tell her that Twice Upon a Time specialized in gently worn bridal and evening gowns. So. Out of two garbage-bags full of clothes and shoes, Buffy had sold one pair of pink satin mules, and a sequined halter top. Grand total? Eighteen dollars. She’d promised Dawn money for a shopping orgy. Eighteen dollars was barely enough for a movie and popcorn. For one person. She could hardly wait for the disappointed, sad-eyed pouting. Maybe the old Watcher Mr. Bledsoe wouldn’t show, wouldn’t be witness to the lame reality that was her everyday life. 

A sudden overwhelming urge to run fast and hard and far, _far_ away skittered through the muscles in her legs. Slaying was, for all its drawbacks, the perfect excuse to flee social and family obligations. Gotta go. Duty calls. Matter of life and death. For the good of humanity and to save the world were pretty hard to argue with. She could go hunt Teletubby demons, get Spike to join her, then tackle him in the bushes and –

Not. Not. Going. There. Anyway, he was through with her. And she was totally through with him. And anyway he probably wouldn’t want to, even if she asked nicely. Not that she would. Ask nicely. Besides, she hadn’t even found the stupid demons in the books yet. 

Glumly she flipped through the Demon Compendium again, hoping a picture of Tinkywinky would leap out from the page – literally – so she could kill something instead of ooh-ing and ah-ing over Anya’s wedding gown. Not that the gown wasn’t pretty, in a Jessica-Rabbit-meets-the-Little-Mermaid kind of way, but how many times did she have to say so? 

“It’s gorgeous,” Buffy droned. “Very, very beautiful. Really. The most beautiful gown I’ve ever seen. Ever. _Really._ ” 

“Really?” The words finally sunk in and Anya’s French-tipped manicured claws clutched the dress to her bosom in avaricious terror. “You can’t try it on!” 

Buffy sighed. “Really don’t want – “

“But, oh! I know. You could hold it up like this – “ She demonstrated, one arm holding the bodice over her torso and the other sweeping the fishtail train out as she twirled like a maniacal Cinderella towards the cash register. “This way you could see how it might look on you if you were taller.” She stopped, flourished the train like a matador, and gave Buffy an appraising gaze. “And had bigger breasts.”

Buffy smiled. Hard. “Oh. Could I?” 

“No.” Anya was much too giddy to note any sarcastic nuance. “I mean, only because I wouldn’t want you to feel inadequate, or in any way hopeless about your future prospects for marriage.” She petted the beadwork covering her bigger breasts. “Besides, I think it’s bad luck for anyone but me to pretend to wear it.” 

“Speaking of luck and the possible badness of it, shouldn’t you put it away now? In case Xander shows up soon?” _Which he will, please, if there is a God,_ Buffy thought.

“Oh, he won’t be here for hours yet. He got called in to work early this morning. Very grumpy about it too. We didn’t get much sleep last night.” Buffy held her breath, praying she wouldn’t have to hear about sex toys of any kind. “I had to send him out late to buy me some … _stuff._ You know.”

_Not sex toys, not sex toys._ “Uh…marijuana? Heroin?”

Anya’s eyes widened in alarm, then she seemed to realize Buffy was joking but still in need of clarification. Although they were the only two people currently in the shop, she cupped her hand to her mouth, and whispered loudly, “ _Girl_ stuff. You know.”

For a moment it didn’t register. This was Anya, after all, who had no trouble whatsoever discussing anal plugs while eating breakfast at Denny’s. Then Buffy clapped her hand to her mouth in a useless attempt to dam shrieks of hilarity. 

Anya looked both confused and affronted. “What’s so funny about that? We’re getting married. It’s not as if he’s completely oblivious to menstruation.”

“I’m sorry,” Buffy managed to choke out. “It’s just – Xander plus feminine hygiene products equals funny.” 

“Yes. And it took him forever too.” She carefully replaced the bridal gown in its bridal white garment bag and zipped it up. “He ran into a demon.”

“Oh. Oh …well … Is he okay?”

“He’s fine.”

“So …what then? He ran into a demon and they went to a demon strip club?”

“Oh my god! Was it that one near the old railroad tracks? That bastard! He told me he was late because he ran into a demon with his car!” 

“Anya, I was kidding. Wait. There really is a demon strip club?”

“He knew I’d be too busy worrying about what to tell the insurance company to question what he’d been up to – “

“Wait. Xander hit a demon with his car?”

“You can’t get coverage for that.” 

“What kind of demon? Did he say?”

“I don’t remember. I was all crampy and befuddled with pain. He said Spike knew.”

“And again with the wait. Spike was with him? They were together?”

“I guess he ran into Spike too. I mean, ran into him in the chance meeting kind of way, not the hitting him with the car kind of way. Spike said he’d seen it before, was going to take care of it or something? At least that’s what I understood. I suppose that was a tissue of lies as well. They probably went to that strip club. And drank hard liquor. And watched girls pretending to have sex with poles – “

“Did it look like a Teletubby by any chance?” 

“Oh, I don’t know what kind of demons strip there.” Anya said, carrying the garment bag to the back room. “I don’t go to those places. Well, not anymore. Not since I was a vengeance demon. Strippers have plenty of reason to curse men, let me tell you – “

The bell over the transom jangled and Anya immediately shifted to business. “Good afternoon, sir. Welcome to the Ma – 

Ernest Simonson Bledsoe swayed in the doorway a moment, then collapsed across the threshold.


	7. Chapter 7

Anya called 911 while Buffy hovered over the old man, looking stunned, kind of like she had that day her mom died. She’d gone with him to the hospital, because he couldn’t talk and she was the only one he knew apparently. Anya thought that was a very nice gesture considering she’d only met him a couple of days ago. 

She was probably sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair, drinking horrible coffee this very moment. 

Anya couldn’t have left the Magic Box, anyway. Not on a Saturday. And though he looked like a perfectly nice old man, she felt it her duty to assure all those potential customers who hadn’t come into the shop because of the ambulance parked outside, that his collapse was in no way the result of any goods and services available at her establishment. Besides, Dawn was supposed to meet Buffy before closing, so there was another perfectly good reason not to go to the hospital. 

Still, she couldn’t help thinking about hospitals. About the last time she’d been in one. The night Buffy died. Everything that night had been huge and tragic. Tragic, but resolved somehow. Finished. Or so she’d thought at the time. The hospital was a comforting place to be. People bustling around, their entire purpose to tend to her injuries and make her better. Doctors talking in quiet voices full of reassuring authority. Nurses wearing cheerful kitten-print scrubs saying, “sshh, sshh, honey you’re gonna be okay.” She’d spent two nights in a bed with her feet tucked into hospital corners. She liked it. She’d felt safe for the first time in so long that she didn’t even recognize the feeling at first. She’d just cried and cried, clutching her engagement ring so hard it left an imprint in her palm that didn’t go away for almost a week.

Xander hated hospital corners. Especially not on his – no – _their_ bed. He squirmed and kicked and growled in frustration until he’d freed the sheets from their moorings. He said hospital corners were a form of torture. 

“If you weren’t gay now,” Anya asked, the moment Willow entered the shop, “and you had a boyfriend or husband who betrayed you or abused you in some horrible way, and I was still a vengeance demon righting the wrongs done to women, would you consider having your husband or boyfriend forced to sleep in a bed with hospital corners sufficient torture for whatever abuses you’d suffered at his hand?”

Willow blinked at her like Cindy-Lou Who at a Grinchy Santa. “No? Um. Wait. What now?” 

“Xander doesn’t see the need to make the bed every morning when we’ll just be messing it up again at night.”

“So … what? You think this is a sign of abusive behavior?”

“No. Merely annoying. I like to keep a tidy house.”

“Of course you do.”

“You’re being condescending, aren’t you? Dismissive.”

Willow’s cheeks reddened, but she didn’t look contrite at all. 

“Why is it that any behavior I exhibit, no matter how ordinary, is held up as an example of how far I am from being a suitably socialized human being?”

“Sorry?”

“I say I like to keep a tidy house. Plenty of people do. Who _aren’t_ demons. In fact, most demons prefer a certain amount of filth. Even vampires. Except Spike lately, but I don’t hear anyone saying, oh Spike has decorated his crypt all House Beautiful, he must surely be up to something evil. But, I’m not Spike! I’m not a soulless vampire. I’m human. So why does _my_ lack of interest in filth make you comment on it in that particular tone of voice? Like ‘of course you do like a tidy house, you were a vengeance demon for a thousand years.’ It makes me mad. And it hurts my feelings.”

Willow’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, her lower lip wobbling even as her chin thrust out in stubborn denial. She looked down at her hands, twitching and twisting together, and Anya could see the shudders ripple through her body beneath the ugly vintage poncho. She looked up again, stunned by whatever she was feeling. “Anya…I – you’re right. I’m sorry. It’s not – ” 

She shivered again. Oddly, so did Anya. It was the kind of shiver that felt good though, like muscles finally letting go of tension under the hands of a skilled massage therapist. Suddenly, she could see millions of tiny dust motes dancing in a wash of cool afternoon sunlight. Which is when they both realized the door was open. They hadn’t heard the jangle.

“Tara,” Willow said. Anya could hear the shout of jubilation in the witch’s voice even though her voice was barely above a breathy whisper. 

“Hi,” Tara said. She looked… well, she looked beautiful. Her hair was windblown and her cheeks were rosy. And she was dressed really nice, not frumpy at all like she had been since she’d left Willow. Victorian style jacket in deep red, with a pink silk corsage pinned over her breast. Her skirt was midnight blue velvet with a deep flounce below her knees. And she was wearing boots in a buttery suede. She wasn’t smiling with her mouth, but with her entire body. 

“Wow,” Willow stammered, “you look – “ 

Anya would have said radiant, or fantastic, or transformed, or so like her _true_ self that the guise she’d worn previously would be completely unrecognizable now.

“—great,” Willow finished lamely. 

“Thanks.” No stutter, no hair falling over a shy averted gaze. No obligatory reciprocation either.

“What are you doing here? I mean, I didn’t expect to, you know—“

“Oh!” Anya squeaked. “Oh, I forgot. Sorry. There was an old man who had a heart attack earlier. I haven’t set up the table yet.”

To Willow’s querulous, anxious expression, Tara explained, “I still do readings on Saturdays. Is he all right? The old man?”

“Buffy’s at the hospital with him right now. He was coming to see her, I think. She met him a few days ago. Used to be a Watcher. I’m sure she’ll fill us in when she gets back.”

“How are you?” Tara asked.

“Well, I can’t get the legs of this table to fold out – oh. You were asking Willow.” 

“Wait, Anya, I’ll come help you in a minute.”

“That’s okay.” Willow’s voice was way too chirpy, almost brittle. “I was just on my way out. I have this meeting. and I’ve scheduled lab time at school and – oh gosh, look at the time. Late. Gotta go.” 

Anya came out as the shop door was closing. She watched Willow hurrying across the street, poncho flapping like bat’s wings. She looked at Tara. “Your aura is very pretty today. Should be good for business.”

“Well, my palm itched like crazy this morning.”

Anya clapped her hands in joy. “Goody! I’ll light some incense.”

***

In a dank, dark lair in the bowels of the city, the evil vampire lay in the unnatural repose of his kind. His sheets were Egyptian cotton the color of old blood (“garnet” in the catalogue,) and his duvet was stuffed with the fluffy sacrificial down of a thousand innocent goslings. 

He dreamt of herding humans into a pen. Whilst on a bicycle. To the tune of _Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head._ It was not his favorite song – far from it. In fact, the part of his dreaming mind in charge of things like props and soundtracks was cringing in mortification. The humans were milling about, completely ignoring his efforts to impose his will upon them, laughing and talking, taking their own sweet time about getting into the pen. The sharp trill from his whistle garnered no more than annoyed glances. He circled them, tires slipping in the gravel. They saw his genuine ferocity as bombastic façade, a mask behind which there was nothing at all. It wasn’t true, but he had no way to prove it, and he felt this frantic despair tight in his throat, his chest. The closer he tried to close in on them, the farther away he seemed to be. He blew high and shrill on the whistle over and over again, until finally the only sound that came out was a low muffled creaking. A creaking that seemed to come from a great distance, far away and high above his head --

Eyelids shuttered over a fading, really lame nightmare, Spike stuck his nose out of the nest of bedding and gave a sniff. “Bloody hell,” he moaned and pulled the covers over his head again. Bad enough Buffy felt she could burst in on him anytime she liked, but this was beyond the pale. 

He maintained this pretense of death-like slumber, ignoring the monster galumphing down the ladder who kept repeating his name, softly at first, then louder and louder. _I’m dead, you wanker, not deaf._ But it wasn’t until the idiot had the gall to poke him in the ribs that he lost it. 

Spike surged up, roaring – a threat marred by the tangle of sheets impeding his forward momentum. Seconds passed before he’d freed his arms and legs enough to launch himself from the bed, hands targeting Xander’s throat.

Xander spared Spike one hellish headache by neatly dodging the attack. Okay. Good. Still amongst the living dead, but – “Holy Schmoley! You’re buck naked!”

A flash of actual embarrassment before the return of Spike’s trademark in-your-face nonchalance about things like evil and full-frontal nudity. “Yeah. ‘Cause that’s how I sleep. In my own bed, in my own fucking home!”

“Technically? You’re a squatter in someone else’s eternal resting place,” Xander said. He was carefully looking at anything that didn’t happen to be Spike’s dangling man parts. Peripherally he saw Spike snatch his jeans from the floor, heard the jangle of belt buckle, and the snakeskin rasp of denim jerked angrily over flesh. 

“Hardly seems fitting,” Spike was saying, his voice tense and raspy as his denim, “you lot walking into my home anytime you like, and me having to be invited into yours.”

“Nature balancing the scales, pal. This way us weak, puny mortals have a chance to catch you in your death-like slumber and do the whole staking beheading thing. Which – gotta say - I prefer to catching you … _exercising._ In that special way.”

“How many times I have to tell you? Wasn’t having a toss.”

“Whatever, dude.”

“Might as well have been,” Spike muttered. 

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” He crawled back into bed with his pants on and drew the wad of bedding over his head. 

The guy was acting the kind of weird of late that was harder and harder to ignore. He was either going to explode in a frenzy of deadly violence like some disgruntled employee or start sporting a soul patch. Spike definitely needed a girlfriend. A nice evil girl who shared his values. Spike and girl X in front of a roaring fire, waxing poetic about the joys of concealed weapons over goblets of blood— 

A pale muscular arm ventured out and reached unerringly for cigarette pack and lighter on the bedside table. Apparently oblivious to the dangerous combination of hair product, goose down and fire, Spike lit a cigarette from inside his cave of comforter and proceeded to send out smoke signals in the form of genie clouds and perfectly formed rings. Xander watched, fascinated and a tad envious, until Spike’s muffled voice asked, “What do you want?”

Good question. In reply, he pulled out his brand new _blue_ Funny Fun ball and lobbed it at a pillar. Flashing lights went pop, pow, and kablooey. _Yes_ , he thought, with mean satisfaction, _the blue ones are way cooler than green._ A fact he was certain of, now that Spike had uncovered his head, and was sitting up, scowling at it. Very nearly a pout, in fact. 

“Mum says I can’t come out and play. It’s my nap time.” 

“You’re just jealous. Anyway, not why I’m here.”

“Why the hell _are_ you here?”

It was hard to stop playing with the ball once you got started. “Wanted to find out how it went last night. With the thing.”

“Thing.”

“You know. The thing. And the possible more things. Last night.” 

“Said I’d take care of it, didn’t I?”

“Yup. Give you any trouble then?”

Spike’s hesitation was enough to draw Xander’s attention away from the ball. He had to scramble to catch it before it went under a chair. 

“What d’you care? Mostly dead anyway. On account of you hitting it with a ton of car.” 

Xander slammed the ball onto the floor to see how wild and high it would go. “I care because — Hoo, yeah! Nice catch, me. Damn. I love this thing! It’s like I’m a god playing with a tiny blue galaxy.”

“Yeah. All hail Xander, god of funny fun. Take it outside.” 

“In a sec. What about that empty lot? Did you get a chance to check it out?”

Spike took a long pull on the cigarette, in a way that only a vampire or an aging truck stop waitress could. “I didn’t. See anything. Now, will there be anything else or can I return to wallowing in the empty wasteland that is my immortal existence?” 

“Man. You have got to lay off the Ingmar Bergman flicks.” 

“Fuck off,” Spike replied, listlessly.

“Okay. Fine. Didn’t want to have to do this, but—“ Xander extracted the crumpled, slightly grimy, slightly lint-covered envelope from the depths of his jacket, and spun it, Frisbee-like, at the bed. 

Spike stared at it, lying there neatly in his lap, perhaps noticing the smudged shoe print from the throwing it on the sidewalk and stomping on it that might have occurred at some point. “What’s this?”

“It’s a bomb, cleverly disguised as a wedding invitation. Couldn’t mail it.” Xander gestured sweepingly at the surroundings. “Obviously.” Spike’s wary scowl was making him regret the magnanimous gesture that prompted him to forgo his original plan of not taking it out of his pocket until long after the wedding was over. 

“You- you’re inviting _me_?” 

“Yeah. Uh, Anya said we had to. Invite you. Because of all the-the stuff. Last summer. Helping out with Dawn. Patrolling. When Buffy was … _gone_ , you know.” Spike ducked his head suddenly, fingers raking through his messy hair, arm partially obscuring his face. “Also, she said we needed a better demon to human ratio at the reception.” 

Fingers inched towards the envelope as if it were, indeed, a bomb. Xander had a sudden desperate need to get the hell out in case it was. He pocketed his ultra-cool blue Funny Fun ball and started scrambling up the ladder. Paused at the top and cast a glance over his shoulder. Spike was turning the envelope over in his hands. Still scowling. “Look. You don’t have to come or anything if you don’t want to. No obligation.” Then he had to grin. “But if you do, she’ll be expecting a gift.” 

Spike gave a dry chuckle. “Will cash suffice?”

“Well, in the words of my betrothed, we sure as hell don’t need another blender.”

***

It was after four by the time Dawn finished her chores. She might have been done sooner but she’d taken a little break to bake a frozen pizza and watch Pretty in Pink on AMC. She was feeling happy, looking forward to the promised shopping spree. Buffy’d made it clear it wouldn’t be a huge spree, but any spree after such a long drought was a reason to feel happy. No mention had been made about her patrolling proposal, so she figured Spike hadn’t had the chance to broach it yet. Which was okay, because shopping was way better than patrolling. Even Buffy agreed with that.

She was a block from Spring Court, when she heard someone call, “Hey Gorgeous.” 

She turned, because she _had_ to, even though the likelihood of her being the Hey Gorgeous was fairly slim. But, oh God. Hottie alert! Asian skater boy with pretty mouth. Guh. Oh crap, he was coming over. Oh my god, she _was_ Hey Gorgeous.

“Wanna come to a party?” 

Closer, she could see the little patch of hair beneath his lip. It both repulsed and fascinated her. He had the longest eyelashes on any one in the history of the entire world. Her knees started to buckle, and she compensated by flipping her hair over her shoulder, and jutting out one hip. “Maybe. Who’s gonna be there?”

“Well. Me of course,” he said. “I’m Alex. I’ll be working the door.” He pushed a flyer into her hands. Her eyes refused to focus on it, but she got a vague impression of lots of cartoon clip art and a long list of bands with names like Betsey Bliss and Kangaranga and Dumbfist. 

“Cool,” she said. Then came to her senses. There was no way she’d be able to go to a rave. Especially in the warehouse district. Or … anywhere really. The whole underage thing sucked.

“It’s all ages,” he said, apparently reading her mind. Or the see-thru plastic mini-backpack with the Barbie colored butterflies plastered all over it. Lame. “No alcohol. Just energy drinks and herbal supplements. Old-fashioned mosh pit. It’s gonna rock.” 

“Cool,” she said again and could have kicked herself. “Maybe I’ll check it out.” 

“You do that,” he said. “Nothing really gets rolling until ten, but if you wanna come hang out before then, that’d be cool too.” She managed to smile and say yeah or something equally lame, managed to turn and make it all the way to the Magic Box without tripping or looking back to see if he was watching. But she had to find out. Hand on the door, she pretended to peer into the window, then shot a quick glance across the street. He was there. Grubby messenger bag over his shoulder. Stapling a poster to a telephone pole. Her mind raced to a not-so-distant future where she and Alex were oblivious to anything but their locked lips kissing in a sea of wildly gyrating bodies. A movement reeled her back and she realized he was waving at her. She returned the gesture and hurried into the shop. 

As soon as Little Miss Jailbait went into the store that sold candles, Alex headed for the alley behind the Espresso Pump. He had totally banging bitch waiting for him. Long hair, hot body, eyes like big ole hunks of amber. She smelled like amber too. Not like some natural-deodorant-hippy-chick either. It was like her _scent_ , man. She probably smelled like that everywhere. Chick was from Brazil. Chicks in Brazil walked around the beaches naked and shit. Oh yeah, he’d do her in a fucking heartbeat. But first he needed to collect the Mocha Grande and twenty bucks she’d promised. 

Not bad just to hand a kid a flyer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, know what would be neat? Kudos or a one word review.


	8. Chapter 8

It was more than just the healed scar in her hand. She felt it in every part of her. A subtle, significant shift in perspective, like a key turning in a lock – click – and suddenly, all these doors opened up. Entire worlds blossoming inside her head. 

It was … illuminating. And a little bit scary. In an exciting way.

Once upon a time Tara had thought of herself as a shadow dweller, and Willow as her source of light. But, like the tree, Willow had a tendency to soak up light and give back a whole lot of shadow. There was something comforting and easy about hiding in Willow’s shadow, no doubt about it. And a person could learn a lot from shadows. They were, after all, the markers of where things stood in relation to the light. 

_Time is like a shadow._

She smiled at the thought as she shuffled the cards and fanned the deck across the velvet scarf on the table. Time made you aware of eternity, the way shadows made you aware of light. Between every step, every breath, every heartbeat that marked your time upon the earth – _eternity._

_And all I have to do is open my hand._ Her newly unscarred hand scanned the deck. A card jerked and began inching its way out from between the others. It seemed almost reluctant. Not like that night last summer when a certain card practically flew out of the deck and got all up in her face screaming “pay attention!” That was night she’d also read Spike’s palm. Or tried to. 

Her recollections of summer consisted mostly of long stretches of grief interspersed with heart pounding terror. Running through graveyards one minute, hyped up on coffee the next, debating the merits of various grand, desperate schemes for making Sunnydale a better, safer place for children and puppies. They were always thinking, always planning, because there was no Buffy, the genuine article, to take care of those things anymore. Willow hadn’t yet shared her _really_ big idea with the other Scoobs, the idea that would eventually bring Buffy back. They’d discussed it privately of course, the two of them, dancing around the whole “blood sacrifice” issue. It was a major component for nearly all the resurrection spells they’d come across. Willow had said absolutely no way, of course. At first. But as summer progressed, Tara could see the false hope and grim despair turn to ruthless determination. She’d stopped asking, and Willow stopped volunteering information. 

Love wasn’t always blind. Sometimes it was just … blinders. 

***

**July, 2001**

Spike and Dawn sprawled in the living room like lazy sultans amidst couch cushions and mountains of snack foods, loudly mocking, yet completely absorbed by the spectacle that was WWWF Smackdown. 

Tara sighed, rubbed at the beginning of a headache gathering between her brows. The tarot cards weren’t cooperating. She wasn’t asking the right questions. Stupid Crowley deck! She was tired. It was too hot. The television was TOO DAMNED LOUD. 

She placed the cards back in the velvet-lined box, and in a screechy voice (that was supposed to sound cheerful but managed mostly to startle the bejeezus out of a girl and her vampire,) suggested ice cream bars all around. 

“So, Witchy Woman,” Spike said between a slurp and a bite. “Cards didn’t happen to tell you when Harris is gonna fix the AC?”

They’d adjourned to the kitchen counter. The back door was open and a weak breeze wafted through the screen door. On the porch, the bug zapper made the intermittent _ppffft_ sounds of a job well done. 

“‘Ask again later.’” Tara intoned, waving her ice cream bar in a “mysteries beyond the ken of mortal men” fashion.

“He has no idea what’s wrong with it, has he?”

“Probably not.” 

They slurped on in silence for a few moments. “What’s the future hold in store for your merry band, then?”

She stared at him, a little incredulous at this uncharacteristic attempt to make idle conversation. “Nothing. I mean – not _nothing_. I just --- I don’t know. It was all kind of vague and amorphous.”

“Not being specific enough with your questions, I’ll warrant.” She barely had time to bristle at the presumptuousness of some vampires when he added, “Surprised you use the Crowley deck. Thought you go in for some kind of Goddess Guide Me, Wicca pagan rot.”

“It’s not rot! And what do you know about it anyway?”

“Well, Crowley deck’s got the two extra cards. Got the Black Magician.” 

Her breath caught in her throat. He couldn’t know. Couldn’t possibly have seen – 

“Ooh, suspect you’ve had truck with _that_ fellow tonight.” Her heart stuttered then started pounding mad and hard beneath her ribs. Spike had that gleam in his eye, the gleam that meant his demon was surging to the fore, anticipating something wonderfully terrible. He leaned in close to her. “Not the end of the world again, is it?” She shook her head quickly, mumbling something about vague and amorphous again. He straightened suddenly. “Good. ‘Cause I need beer for that.” 

Tara didn’t so much relax as noticeably deflate. 

“You are such an asshole,” Dawn said matter-of-factly.

“That’s arsehole to you, little missy.”

Having deflated, Tara pumped herself full of irritation. “Clearly your knowledge of divination is limited.”

“True,” he said, then yelped “bugger!” as chocolate shell slid from his ice cream bar on its way to his lap. He caught part of it with the edge of his hand and the rest of it with his mouth. 

“Ha!” Dawn cried, her grin too much like his own. Smug and slightly evil. “Bet you wish you had a bowl to catch the drips now, pal.” Her bar was already naked, divested of its chocolate coating, and the ice cream dribbled steadily from the wooden stick into a plastic bowl with a picture of the Lucky Charms leprechaun in it. 

“Don’t believe in working with a safety net, pidge.” He licked the remains of chocolate off his hand, while giving Tara his patented sideways gaze. “Not trying to steal your thunder. Just saying what I been told. Drusilla was the fortune teller in the family. A regular Pythia. ‘Course, could never be sure if she read the cards or _they_ read _her,_ if you know what I mean.” He gave a short laugh. “Remember this one time we brought in the Order of Taraka to take the Slayer out, on account of Dru seeing victory in the cards, only the bitch of it was – “ Dawn made tiny strangled sound. Spike noticed, but couldn’t seem to stop the momentum of his mouth. It was like watching a wind-up toy fall sideways – “she kicked the holy shit out of ‘em. Was _her_ victory. Over us. In the cards. What. Dru. Saw. Not – Yeah. Anyway.”

Dawn scratched circles in the goo at the bottom of her bowl. 

“So, Spike. Ever had your palms read?” Tara asked, transparently changing the subject. He pulled back, eyes narrowed in trepidation. Even that was part of a show they were putting on for Dawn’s sake. Dawn picked it up and ran with it. 

“Yes!” she squealed. “Yes, do him! Read Spike’s palm.” 

“Not having my palm read for your amusement.” 

“Why not? You do that thing with your tongue for my amusement.” 

Spike winced and drew in a hiss between his teeth. 

“Excuse me?” Tara said. “What _thing_ would that be?”

“Not what you think—“ 

“It’s like totally obscene,” Dawn enthused.

“You’re not helping my case here, Bit.”

“Show Tara. Go on.”

“No.”

“ _Do it!_ Come on. Please, please, please, please.”

He thrust his hands out to Tara across the kitchen counter. “Read my palms. Please do.” Dawn stuck the drippy stick in her mouth and giggled in triumph. 

Tara took the hands he offered in her own, feeling him fighting the urge to pull away even as she did so. She could feel a lot of other things as well. The cool, dry, talcum powder slickness of his flesh, and a roiling force beneath the surface of it, like chi running widdershins. Her thumb brushed away a tiny smear of chocolate in his palm, and he swallowed a gasp. She looked up. His eyes were fierce and fearful. There was something in her tenderness he could not abide. 

“I should warn you,” he began, his voice low, sultry as the summer heat. It made her brain feel like a moth too close to the bug zapper. “It’s a little late to be telling me to avoid beautiful women in dark alleys.” 

Ah. He was alluding to a pattern. She was looking for patterns. “Maybe there’s a mark here. Something that indicated how you’d meet your … maker.” Her lips twitched in an effort not to smile at her own morbid pun. 

“As t’were,” he said with an answering grin.

“Oooh,” Dawn said, excited by the cheesy horror factor. “The Mark of the Vampire. That would be so cool!” 

“Cool? Not so much. But maybe if I can identify it here, then when I see it in someone else’s hand I could …warn them?” She wasn’t sure how effective that would be.

He snorted. “And just what are you gonna tell ‘em, sweetheart? Carry holy water instead of pepper spray? If they end up done for by a human, where’s the difference? You can’t keep people from their own destinies. Predictions and prophecies, yeah, those can be stepped around, but what’s writ in flesh, that’s fate.”

“No, it isn’t.” This was _her_ area of expertise, after all. His hands were palm up, cradled in hers, and she angled them so that he could see the lines as well as she. “You’re left-handed, aren’t you? So your right hand is kind of the map you came into the world with – like what you wanted to accomplish, experiences you wanted to have? The left hand shows the path you’ve taken, where you’ve followed the map or where you decided to veer off course and go some other way. We have choices. We make choices everyday. Some things in both hands are consistent though. Like here and here.” She pointed to an X in both life lines. “Death of a parent in childhood. I’m guessing your father, because here and here, these indicate a very close relationship with your mother throughout your life –“ 

Dawn laughed. Spike snarled at her. Tara continued, “These open loop de loops show a creative, artistic type. Sensitive, emotional. I’m thinking a writer rather than a painter.” She drew a fingernail over triangles through his head and fate lines. Then turned his hand to the side to trace the hash marks beneath his pinky. “See this deep line and all these little ones? Marriage and…one, two, three— jeez Spike, _five kids_? Whole mess of grandchildren. You planned to be quite the procreative love machine.” 

Dawn didn’t laugh at that. Tara was too caught up in discovery to note what that might mean. She was looking at Spike’s palms, not his expression. 

“Oh… _oh_. Broken heart in your youth. Pretty girl tore it into pieces and stepped all over it. Oh wow. She really smashed it good—“

“Tara…” Dawn said softly. 

“Or maybe that hadn’t happened before you died. Hhmm. But see? It was gonna come out all right, because here’s true love and a long happy life—” 

He jerked his hands away so fast Tara felt like she had rope burns. 

Dawn got out of her chair, and put her bowl in the sink. “Um…South Park is on.” But Spike was already out the door and gone.

***

She’d felt horrible about it, of course. She’d also felt cheated. Because she never got a really good look at his other hand that night. 

Now, she could remember everything she’d seen, like hypnotic regression. She’d seen a lot more than she realized at the time. Though his right hand had showed a long, fairly uneventful, perfectly average life, the left hand showed the pattern usually associated with a violent end. Of course, a long boring life could end in violence as much as any other kind of life. She’d seen that before in other readings, so hardly an indication of death by vampire. Except maybe in Sunnydale. Gran, who’d taught her this, said it was more merciful to advise caution in such cases without being too specific as to why. “Won’t help much if a body ends up killed by a motorboat while watching out for sharks.” Gran would have been able to point out exactly what pattern in Spike’s palm showed the usual circumstances of his violent end. Maybe the mark of the vampire was simply the difference between the ordinary life in one hand and the violent outcome indicated in the other. Maybe? 

Shoot! Why hadn’t she thought to ask back then if he’d noticed any of the lines had changed at all since he died? She couldn’t imagine how that would be possible. Ageless, immortal being, after all. Even so, they moved through time like anyone else. Lines in the palms shifted and changed as people aged. Her own lines were like a journal of her life and love and experiences on the one hand, and all her hopes and dreams and wishes on the other. She’d have to ask the next time she saw him—

The place in her palm where the scar had been tingled, then itched with a sudden intensity. Probably some deep tissue regeneration or something. But an itching palm was supposed to mean money, so she couldn’t help but smile when the bell over the transom jangled out in the main part of the shop. She heard the murmur of a woman’s voice and then Anya’s overly enthusiastic sales pitch, “Normally our resident Oracle is booked solid on Saturdays, but she’s had a cancellation. You’re very fortunate!” A footstep, then the bead curtain was drawn aside. A woman stepped through to the alcove and the beads swung back. 

Tara stopped breathing. Just for a second. Luminous eyes entangled her own. 

“You are much too pretty to be an Oracle,” said the beautiful woman. She had a voice like Spanish coffee, the real kind, that you lit on fire to caramelize the sugar around the rim. Or maybe it was just the tall latte from the Espresso Pump she carried that made Tara think of coffee. 

The traces of dark red lipstick staining the lid made her think of something else entirely. 

***

Anya could not reconcile the days receipts. There were twenty dollars unaccounted for. Twenty whole dollars! That was the equivalent of a man-shaped sex candle and a packet of Yum Yum incense – plus a nickel! She’d been the only person at the cash register all day, and whenever that was the case, the till always reconciled with the receipts to the freaking penny. At first she’d thought it must have fallen, or slipped behind the register, but a search on hands and knees did not recover either cash or a credit card receipt. She was adding it all again when there was a pounding on the door. She started to yell “Closed,” before realizing it was Xander. He was now tapping on the glass of the display window, calling her name, and wearing that harried, constipated look he sometimes got when he had something on his mind. She made a quick mental note to pick up bran muffins as she rushed to let him in. 

“Thank goodness you’re here. I’m missing twenty dollars. You have to help me find it.”

He brushed past her, appearing to be as motivated as she was. But instead he asked, “Where’s Buffy? Is she in the training room?”

“She’s not here. Were you listening, Xander? I’m short twenty dollars!”

“Well, at least you’re not dead in dumpster.”

“What?”

The beaded curtains rattled. Tara and her client emerged. “What’s going on?”

“Uh…” Xander stared at the two of them for a second, clearly having lost his train of thought. “Uh…I need to find Buffy.”

“She’s had to go the hospital,” Anya explained. “Oh, that’s probably when I lost the twenty dollars. I was so distracted by the ambulance—“

“WHAT?”

“She’s okay, Xander,” Tara assured him. She looked at Anya. “Right?”

“Oh, oh yes. There was an old man. He had a heart attack or something. She went to the hospital with him. I keep having to explain this.”

“Well, there’s trouble and I need to talk to her about it.”

“Trouble?” 

Xander’s head wheeled around, eyes pulled by the voice of the woman standing really, really close to Tara. Again, his lower lip hung suspended. Anya fought the urge to clamp it shut – with an actual clamp. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Look, I don’t want to freak you out or anything, but there may be a bad guy running around loose out there.” He turned to Anya. “They found a kid in the dumpster behind the Espresso pump. Dead. There was, uh, trauma. To the _throat_.” He looked at Tara again. Again his mouth hung slack. What the hell was his problem? 

“Oh,” Tara said. “You’d better go get Buffy then.” She glanced at the woman next to her. “Because…she … shouldn’t be out alone. She’ll need a ride.”

“Where’s Dawn?” he asked suddenly. “I was supposed to take her home after the shopping orgy, wasn’t I?”

“Sadly, there wasn’t a shopping orgy. She was here earlier, but Buffy’d already gone. I have to say, Dawn handled it with surprising maturity. I mean she was disappointed, but she didn’t pout or screech or fling herself about in that way she has. She even watched the store for a few minutes while I was in the basement. She left a couple of hours ago.” 

“Could you call and make sure she got home all right? I’m gonna go get Buffy.” And he headed to the door, just like that!

“Well, how am I supposed to get home?” Anya exclaimed. She put her hands on her hips because that’s what people did when pointing out a glaring oversight. “If there’s a vam- villain on the loose I’ll need a ride too.” Xander paused, obviously torn. Possibly irritated. Guilty? She couldn’t quite read his expression. Of course, they weren’t free to speak plainly, what with the strange woman in the store. Something definitely strange about her. Stranger than the fact that she was an actual stranger– 

“I have my car, Anya,” Tara said. “I can drop you off.” She swallowed then. Loudly. “Um…I can give you a ride too,” she told the woman. Her eyelashes were fluttering a mile a minute under a shy sidelong glance. “If you’d like?”

“Yeah. That’s a good idea.” Xander said. “You probably shouldn’t be on the streets until Bu – the cops. Catch the guy.”

“Or girl,” Anya called after him. “It could be a female vam – vile virago – ” The door shut behind him and she scurried over to lock it. When she’d turned from that, the strange woman was looking at her. She was a foxy woman – not in the sexy seventies way, but like a gumiho in a Korean fable. When she shifted her gaze from Anya to Tara, it was obvious what she was after. 

“You’re most kind. Very generous of you,” the foxy lady said to Tara. Her accent was familiar. Brazilian. Back in her vengeance days, Anya had done a lot of work in South America. Passionate people, really inspiring. 

Tara was the first to drop her eyes, which meant she was most definitely interested. Suddenly, deeply bored with the dance of lesbian courtship, Anya remembered the most important issue of the evening. 

“But I’m still missing twenty dollars!”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all, this was a long, long piece in novel form that I did not finish because I moved some of the concepts and ideas into a legit novel but stuff happened. These chapters are still a delight. Hope you enjoy. Remember - it's a work-in-progress.


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